I have no way of proving or even quantifying this, but there have been a few moments over the years in our fair city when the announcement of a coming event seemed to not only catch the city by surprise, but move it forward in weird ways. They are moments that illustrate both how small we are and how much we are growing.
Small because when they happen, we all seem to hear about them at the same restaurant or Rotary Club meeting and immediately call the same person for tickets.
When Prince suddenly announced he would play at Memorial Auditorium - with Larry Graham on bass, no less - people were like, "He's coming here? To our little bump in the road?" The same happened when we suddenly got Bob Dylan, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Elton John all within just a few months of each other.
You could hear the talk all over town that things were changing, man. We were becoming somebody. Those "big" moments have lessened to a degree over the years as we have come to now expect, and accept, that we are a growing city and that people want to come here and play, eat, visit and hang out.
All of the Ironman events illustrate what I mean. Those are all huge events, and we are kind of "Well, yeah. Cool," about them now.
Barry CourterBut the announcement last year that the Moon River Music Festival would be held at Coolidge Park was the biggest thing in a long time. The commonly held belief was that a festival featuring current hitmakers with a high-dollar ticket price would never work here. You could feel the air being sucked out of rooms and meeting spaces all over town when it sold out in mere hours and the event proved to be even bigger and better than imagined.
I can only guess what it must have been like for first-time visitors to our city to check into a hotel room downtown and then learn they could walk to the site; then see that set-up on the river with the Hunter Museum of American Art and the bridges framing the scene.
Speaking of Moon River, Brad Steiner, who, in the interest of full disclosure, is the co-host of a podcast we do about Bonnaroo called The What Podcast, is starting a new interview series that he will record live with an audience at Songbirds. The first will be recorded this weekend featuring Moon Taxi at 10 a.m. Saturday morning.
To attend the show, which will be called "Input/Output - the Source of the Sound," visit inputoutput.live to get tickets. The shows will air monthly, with the first two being posted on the website sometime in the next couple of weeks, Steiner said.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.