This post is from Out the Other's 2009 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2009 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
It pretty much goes without saying that The Features are my favorite band in Nashville.
Wait, does it? If the constant blog love, the constant radio airplay, the fact that I can't count how many times I've seen them since I moved to Nashville, and my absolute unending adoration of last year's Some Kind of Salvation have all yet to clue you in, let's give this a shot: hey guys, DID YOU KNOW THE FEATURES ARE MY FAVORITE BAND IN NASHVILLE?
And like any favorite band, I can remember exactly when and how I fell in love. Six years ago (almost to the day - the anniversary of the move was Monday) I moved to Nashville, and moved in with a girl named Alexis, and she and her boyfriend told me The Features were their favorite band. This was way before I got involved in the Nashville music scene in any way (in fact I had no clue that said boyfriend-now-husband would turn out to be Privates lead singer and musical man-about-town Dave Paulson), but I took note of the recommendation, and certainly took note when I first heard The Beginning EP a month or two later. And I'm pretty sure my first Features show - a little while later at Exit/In - was actually the very first show I ever saw in Nashville. I fell in love by the time the band was three songs in - I remember looking around at a room full of fans who knew when to shout or sing or clap or fist-pump along, looking at four guys on stage who were having the time of their lives, and I (possibly for the first time since I got to Nashville) thought to myself "shit, I think I moved to the right town."
Now it's six years, two full-length albums, a lot of major label hubub, and many many shows later, and I can still vividly remember the moment I realized I wanted to be a part of the local music scene. Sweaty and smiling and with the last notes of "Thursday" ringing in my ears, I walked out of Exit/In that night a Nashville music fan. At the time I had no idea I'd end up being the "local rock cheerleader" I am today, but I can pinpoint that as the very instant my course was set.
And I'm not even a "real" Features fan, according to most of the usual suspects around town. I've never heard 75% of the Features catalog (they have the craziest ratio of recorded songs to unrecorded songs they never play live than any band I've ever seen). I wasn't around for the 'Boro days, I never joined the Features message board, and I couldn't tell you which songs had four different incarnations before they landed on Some Kind of Salvation (although thanks to The Damage Is Done, I'm starting to learn). But I've never sung anything as loudly as I sing "Lions" in my car, and I've never listened to an album for a week straight the way I obsessed over Salvation, and I'm not even sure another band has ever managed to make me as happy as the Features make me.
And I will never, EVER stop trying to get people to listen to the Features. And see them live. And fall and love with them the way I did.
The Features will play the Troo Music Lounge on Friday from 6:40-7:30 p.m. Check out the Full Bonnaroo schedule on the official Bonnaroo website.
