Greenville >>> Charlotte, Retrospective
Photo by Dan Johnson
I was at the farmers market last Saturday morning when I met a customer who was visiting from Charlotte and wanted to spend the morning seeing what local attractions Greenville had to offer. I guessed her to be my age (40ish?) and she was there with her daughter who was probably in high school. When I asked what brought them to town, she told me that they had come specifically for the Nelly show at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena the night before. While I rarely give Nelly much thought beyond suggesting that my wife take off all her clothes anytime she complains about a room being too hot, this encounter has been rattling around in my head for most of the week since.
First, it reminded me of being a little younger than her kid’s age when my parents would schlep my friends and I up to Charlotte to see my favorite bands every few months because in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Greenville, you had to go to the closest major city to see the big names. Metallica, ZZ Top, The Black Crowes and, eventually, Rage Against the Machine and Wu-Tang clan were all checked off my musical bucket list thanks to pilgrimages to the Charlotte Coliseum and Blockbuster Pavilion. I share this because, at the time, if you told me people would one day travel from Charlotte to Greenville for a concert I would have suggested that a visit to the local mental health professional was probably in order. This was, of course, at a time when Downtown Greenville’s Main St. still had multiple wig stores and nobody knew there was a waterfall hiding under a road, but I digress.
Bon Secours Wellness Arena
Beyond those memories of concerts with my friends and my parents’ willingness to drive a 3 ½ - 4 hour round trip just to have dinner at a nice restaurant after dropping us off at a show, I thought about what 13 year old me might have said if you told him that one day he would be writing about music on a weekly basis for six years and counting. I suspect he would have called it a dream job as he spent countless hours and lawn-mowing dollars at Manifest Records and would see following music for a living to be the world’s greatest profession. For the record, I would leave out the part where there is no real “living” to be made here and let the poor little schmuck follow his dreams…
Mostly, though, I have been thinking of my music fandom in today’s terms. Today, I can think of no torture worse than sitting through an arena show of any kind as I am far too grouchy for the crowds and those simply are not the bands I follow anymore. When Spotify recently did that just-a-little-bit creepy “we’ve been watching and know what you like” playlist release, I was surprised at how many local artists were on there right next to my old favorites. Luxx, Lo Indigo, Gridd, Vilai Harrington, and Maxx Good$ were right there in the mix with Social Distortion, Todd Snider, and the Beastie Boys which, to my mind at least, speaks volumes about the quality of our local music scene. The best part is that these artists are playing right here in town on more local stages than you can shake the proverbial stick at (also, count that among the statements my younger self would have found unfathomable).
The Spinning Jenny
