I went to the the launch of the Ten Out Of Tenn tour launch show at the Cannery Ballroom last night. There had to be 1000 people there to hear a bunch of artists that most people outside of Nashville haven’t even heard of. I moved to Nashville last fall because I wanted to be in a town that nurtures this kind event. This is the second time that Trent and Kristin Dabbs have pulled together ten great Nashville artists for a modern day Rolling Thunder Revue. I’d have gladly paid to see any one of these artists. It was almost overwhelming to see all ten of them playing together.

There’s no headliner. They run it like a big noisy songwriter in the round. The artists all play on each other’s songs so the band keeps shifting. Sometimes there are ten musicians on the stage. It feels like a big family of songwriters that all respect each other and love each other’s songs.

I liked all of it, but a few people’s songs really stood out. Matthew Perryman Jones, K. S. Rhodes, Griffin House and Katie Herzig really brought down the house. And Butterfly Boucher proved that the chicks can rock as hard as the guys.

I sponsored the first tour during my days at Paste and it was plenty cool the first time. But they’ve learned from the first tour and taken it to a new level for the second outing. I’m looking forward to how it will evolve for the third, fourth and fifth tours.

You can hear their music at the Ten Out Of Tenn MySpace and many of the artists have music available for whatever you want to pay on NoiseTrade. But you’ll miss a great night if you only listen to their albums. Don’t miss the opportunity to see them if you are in one of the 16 towns they are visiting in the next few weeks.

God I love this town…

Joe