Band of Horses: Ryman 2013

For Live music Friday this week, I’m gonna throw a bit of a curveball.  I’m guilty of just thinking everyone knows Band of Horse because No One’s Gonna Love You was on every fucking show in the late aughts. But they aren’t selling out arenas, so I don’t know how familiar you are with the band. In 2013, they did a two-night run (is two nights a run?) at the Ryman, and I was lucky enough to see night one. So some of those clapping hands heard on this recording is me. You’ll know which claps are mine if you listen closely on the 1 and 3. I

chose this album more for my memories of that trip. 

Today's Album

I had been living in upstate NY for a couple of years at this point in my life, but my best friend and I hadn’t quite figured out the meetups. Those first two years, our trips were simple. Whoever was turning thirty chose the city, and the other did the planning. This really worked in my favor because my buddy’s wife made all the plans for his 30th and I didn’t have to do shit but buy a plane ticket. 

Anyways, during FaceTime, we talked about upcoming concerts and saw that Band of Horses was playing the Ryman. Instantly, we made plans to go to a show. They advertised an acoustic set and a plugged-in set; it was perfect. 

Ray and I met over our love of music during my last summer in college. After being introduced to his wife, Kate, the 3rd time, she and I finally remembered each other. From that day onward, we had been a tight group. Unlike most of our other friends, we didn’t mind driving two or three hours to go to a concert. Music is our thing. Most of our evenings now end with us playing songs we are into now for each other. Back then, it was all about the live shows, and there wasn’t a band we had seen more times than Band of Horses. Despite starting in Seattle, the band is located in South Carolina. They toured Georgia a lot, and we’d see them often. We would often joke that we had to see them again because this time we might actually remember the show. 

Since we went our separate ways in 2011, me in NY and them to Atlanta, we hadn’t seen a show together. Now it was 2013, and we were finally going to see another show together. By the time April rolled around and we met in Nashville, we had gone a few months without hanging out and proceeded to make up for lost time. I had arrived in Nashville a bit nervous because the only other time I had been in the city was with my ex after we had broken up, because we had Dave Matthews Band tickets and I wanted to see Dave for the first time. You know how you don't want to return if you have an unpleasant time in a city? Nashville was one of those cities for me until this visit. 

Photo from Flood Magazine

We all arrived on Friday before the show and went out on Broad Street to do some drinking and catching up. It was great time except for the fact that every fucking band in Nashville was playing Wagon Wheel. Darius Rucker had just come out with his cover of the song, and our old drinking anthem from college was everyone’s go-to country song of the moment. That’s the weekend I went from loving the song to hating it. We finally found a band on like the third floor of a honky-tonk playing 90s country hits. So we wrapped up our night there. 

Finally, it was the day of the show, and we pregamed a bit but didn’t want to be to trashy since the Ryman is a sacred venue and it was our first time there. We wound up being the perfect amount of buzzed to enjoy the show. In fact, it was the first BoH show that all three of us remembered. The intimacy of the acoustic set was nice, and the Ryman is such a great venue. Definitely go to a show there if you haven’t. The second set was as rocking as ever. 

This might be the peak lineup of Band of Horses; they finally got a consistent lineup, and everyone truly seemed to be enjoying themselves. Their 2012 record was garbage, but those first three records of theirs really mean a lot to me and my friends. We would constantly play Band of Horses while drinking and playing darts in a garage back in the aughts. This weekend completely felt like a capstone to all those nights post-college where your friend group shrinks considerably. 

On the Sunday before leaving, we decided to make it a yearly thing to pick a band and see them play. No rules, any city, any band we liked. It was a tradition we’d keep until quarantine.