Keeping an independent venue alive and thriving has never been simple, despite how important these spaces are to the music and cultural ecosystem in cities around the world that are lucky enough to have them. Even years after COVID lockdown, it still seems harder than ever for indie venues to keep doing the valuable work they do in Nashville. Last year, data backing up that intuition was published in two studies, the Nashville Independent Venues Study and the Greater Nashville Music Census. To shine a spotlight on mom-and-pop venues at work, the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp and Music Venue Alliance Nashville teamed up to put on 615 Indie Live, a festival featuring some 50 artists — running the gamut from hip-hop to punk to soul to Americana to soul and beyond — onstage at 17 venues on Saturday, Feb. 1, and we caught a few of the sets.
Shows that were part of the fest began at noon. By 8 p.m., when The Wooten Brothers started their set at Rudy’s Jazz Room — the Gulch-area hotspot named for their late brother, saxophonist Rudy Wooten — the line extended from the entrance to the end of the block. Bless the door guy: He had to explain to those in line that the venue was already at the “one-in, one-out” part of the night since many of the patrons who showed up for the 5:30 set (from a group led by saxman Jeff Coffin) were sticking around to see the storied Wootens. At the back of the line, I was puzzling out how to navigate this situation, but the damp and the near-freezing temps did my work for me. Would-be guests made the call to go instead to one of the other shows their wristband would get them into, and my showgoing buddy and I found ourselves inside before too long.
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