Man, I love this town. Have I mentioned that of late? I honestly think there’s no better place to be than Nashville these days.
Weekends like this past one where there are approximately 1,478 cool things going on only remind me how lucky I am to be a Tennessean. The weekend kicked off with Taylor’s Red tour, during which I made new friends at the bar—Taylor Swift bonds people, y’all—only to find out we already had 30 friends in common (thanks, Facebook). That’s just how the South rolls; you can’t go anywhere without meeting a friend of a friend. Everyone is connected by much less than six degrees. People who love TSwift? Even more connected.
(It was also nice that we were older than the average clientele by approximately 20 years as there was no difficulty at all getting a table at the bar directly across from Bridgestone!)
Say what you will about Taylor but a) I won’t listen (lalalalala) and b) she puts on a killer show.
I loved every minute of the Red tour and love all the special guests she brought out like Ed Sheeran, Luke Bryant and Hunter Hayes.
Then there was no time to recover from the Taylor excitement (and uh, hangover) before it was time for Music City Eats, the two-day embarrassment of riches I covered for Southern Living. It featured some of my favorite local chefs, such as Sarah Gavigan of Otaku South (a KEEN speaker!), Deb Paquette of Etch, Matt Farley of the Southern, and so many more.
I ran into plenty of familiar faces, from close media friends to the master distiller at Willett who so kindly gave us a private tour last year.
Oh yeah, and this guy was behind it. So there’s that.
And then it was a picnic for my friend Megan, who was getting married the next day, and time to go back to Taylor. Again. (You didn’t think she’d come to town for the final four days of her Red tour and I’d only go once, did you? I’m just surprised I didn’t take the hat trick.) I felt underdressed compared to the pint-sized fashionistas I was up against, but still, another smashing time.
Poor Taylor was so sick she could barely speak, but she powered through it anyway.
And then we took my mom to a Honky Tonk on Broadway. She hung with the big kids until turning into a pumpkin (though I kept getting stressed out as she’s so wee, she’d disappear into the crowd).
We ran into a huge group of Tullahoma kids my sister graduated with, and then my cousin and his lady friend. The whole of Nashville is starting to feel a bit like Cheers.
Sunday saw my dear friend (and former roommate) Megan get married in her backyard in East Nashville.
You may remember Megan as my partner-in-crime in New York, then the one with whom I shared an attic room and a double bed during our days living in Holland and who orchestrated my most memorable Thanksgiving dinner to date. She’s now one of the hottest pastry chefs in Nashville. And yes, of course she made her own cake!
These days, I’m more thankful and humbled than ever to be living among so many friends and family (and so much FUN, all. the. time.). Want to experience a little Music City magic of your own? Then please consider joining me next month for our first (but certainly not last) KEEN Digital Summit next month just yet? (First year attendees will get special perks in subsequent years as thanks for helping us out when we were the new guy!)(Oh, and you can use the promo code FRIENDS for a discount since we all are, in fact, friends here.)
