This is a huge week for the city of Nashville, Tennessee. Dozens of thousands….maybe even hundreds of thousands, of people will be flocking city streets downtown and clogging up the airport. The Predators are playing for the Stanley Cup, and while Game 5 takes place tonight in Pittsburgh, the team is guaranteed a Game 6 here in Nashville on Sunday night. It just so happens to coincide with the annual country music mecca that is CMA Fest. And, plenty of people will be in and around town as they make the journey down to Manchester for Bonnaroo.
It’s insane – for a lot of us natives, it’s a bit of a headache, too. I have an odd, complex love/hate relationship with the shining star that has become Nashville. New people here means overcrowding and terrible traffic. The First Lady and I live about eight miles out of the city, and some mornings, it takes us an hour to get to work. I also hate the perception that Nashville’s identity is tied to country music.
BREAKING NEWS: it’s not.
Nashville has a ton of qualities outside of the music industry that make it a wonderful place – the food, the people, the night life. It’s centrally located, so you’re within a half day’s drive of the beach, the Smoky Mountains, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Memphis (read: Tunica (casinos)). There’s a great outdoors scene here. And, trendy spots around town shake that hokey, touristy vibe that looms over Broadway.
Just for full transparency here: there is also this sort of echo chamber in Tennessee, too – so it’s not exactly a haven for progressive liberals. But, it also makes it hard for middle-ground people like myself with the resounding conservative voice that engulfs the state. Nashville is growing increasingly moderate, but the lack of new ideas and forward thinking surrounding it can grow tiresome. That’s a simple point, though – not really related to the bigger picture here.
This sort of boom has been brewing for the better part of 10 years and is the culmination of almost 20 years’ worth of work. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when this started, but I look back to the late 1990s and early 2000s. You’ll see a lot of the major players in Nashville’s entertainment field came to be during this time period.
Bridgestone Arena opened in 1998 (shout out to anyone who remembers the GEC (pronounced: ‘geck’)). Nissan Stadium followed in 1999. The Country Music Hall of Fame relocated to its current location in the early 2000s. From there, all of the bars and restaurants started popping up all over town.
In hindsight, I look at that as a critical period in getting us to where we are today. It seems like that was a concentrated effort to raise the profile of Music City and embrace the rich traditions it housed.
Before that, Nashville wasn’t exactly a place you wanted to frequent. I can remember being a kid and hearing my parents talk about how you just didn’t go down there. You’d always hear about a new stabbing, drug deal, prostitution bust, etc. down there. East Nashville was far from the blossoming community it is now. It was just there….doing nothing.
I attended Middle Tennessee State University from 2004-2008 in Murfreesboro. That’s the first time I can recall noticing Nashville becoming a popular destination. I remember friends on the weekends telling me they were going downtown, and I’d respond with, “why? What on Earth is down there?”
It was probably about 1/16th of what it is today, but you’d go down there and start to get it a little bit. You’d see the bright lights of Broadway, and those establishments down on 2nd Avenue would let you in without carding you. PSA: those venues have long since been shut down – gee, wonder why?
Then, the flood happened. It was 2010, and is easily the most destructive, trying experience I’ve ever lived through in this city (I’m 30 years old, FYI). But, it was my first real look at the spirit of Nashville. The people here pitched in to help whoever needed it. It was a bonding experience, and as a city, we pulled through.
Something else happened, though. It became cheaper to live here. So, people started moving into the city. As us locals like to say, “the word started to get out.”
Since then, things have exploded. I mean, it’s almost ridiculous to watch. New high rises are popping up monthly, they say 100 new people are moving here each day, traffic is maddening.
But, we’re also bringing in thousands of people for CMA Fest, and 50,000 people are crowding the streets to watch the Preds play away games. I don’t know how to process that. I really don’t know what to say. It’s amazing to see all of these people lining the streets of Nashville when I grew up thinking I was living in small town, USA.
Throughout it all, the spirit of Nashville remains unchanged. It was born out of people that will shake your hand and talk about the weather with you. I lucked into an incredibly funny, gifted, and creative social circle here. I see people creating all over the city – music (other than country), art, podcasts, comedy, beers (shout out to Tailgate Brewery), etc…
That’s what it’s all about to me – hard work and supporting each other despite our differences. All the buildings, the people, the bright lights – it all boils down to people seeing something special here and bringing it to fruition.
It gives me hope that as we continue to grow, we will always be who we are.
Regardless of whether my heart is swelling seeing 50,000 people cheering on our Preds or I’m cursing at the maddening traffic (I know, I know. “Stoney, we get it. You hate the traffic), I’m definitely proud of what this city has become.
Long live Nashville….and go Preds.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. A strong advocate of GSD (get shit done) and #BeBetter, he’s down to talk Tennessee Titans and Alabama Crimson Tide football over a beer any day. Check him out covering the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley, @WrestlingNewsCo
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