TN

Sometimes when you sketch out a tour you have a couple of outliers that don’t quite fit in to the routing. You assess the offer and sometimes confirm it with the hope that something will come along that will tie all the travel together. The gig in Franklin was just such a gig, unfortunately, this time we weren’t able to find a gig that tied it to the rest of the tour. So our day off was spent driving the ten hours to Charlottesville, VA, sitting for twelve hours while our driver slept and then continuing on for another ten hours to Franklin. Along the way we blew a tire and ran from a late winter storm howling in to the South East….but we made it, if a little beaten up.

Franklin is about 10 miles south of Nashville. It’s a tidy little town that has managed to preserve most of its 19^th century architecture. It looks like a lot of money has moved in to this area over the past couple of decades and some of that money has been put to good use in refurbishing and preserving the Antebellum history of Main Street. It’s also apparent from all of the historical plaques set up around town that there was a lot of blood spilt in this area during the Civil War, including The Battle of Franklin, which was one of the bloodier battles of the western campaign. The Franklin Theatre has been one of the beneficiaries of the town’s refurbishment movement. The new owners have taken a beautiful old 1930’s movie theatre and turned it into a modern music room, with excellent production and one of the nicest backstage set-ups that we have come across. We were treated incredibly well. Unfortunately the show itself (from my perspective) didn’t live up to the surroundings. I had a horrible night, one of those nights where the guitar feels like a piece of plywood and the fret board looks like an algebra equation (“…if I put this finger here and that finger there, I should get…DOH!!…). In any case, the audience spent the second set trying their best to pull us through. I hope that it wasn’t as tortured a show from their perspective (it usually isn’t). We hope to get back here soon and redeem ourselves (or at least redeem myself).

Pete's ipad sketch of the Franklin Theater: