Wanda Jackson!

There are pluses and minuses to living in any city, right? In the plus column for New York, I would put (1) righteous pizza sold by the slice, (2) lucrative busking opportunities, (3) the subway and (4) live "Kuntry Karaoke" at Hank's. In the minus column are (1) parking, (2) snow turning from white to black in a day, (3) parking, (4) parking tickets [grumble grumble]. Nashville's minus column involves (1) NO good Thai food [wtf?], (2) lack of bagels, (3) exorbitant admission price at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. N-ville's plus column includes (1) a full-scale replica of the Parthenon (2) honky-tonk dancing at Robert's and (3) 650 AM, WSM.

At the top of today's local plus column, though, is the fact that Wanda Jackson gave the best show of all time right here in Music City last night. That's right folks, I heard WANDA JACKSON play a few hours ago. The concert was at this little dive bar in East Nashville (which was thankfully smoke-free for the evening). The place was crammed with 20- and 30-somethings dressed in 50s attire (plus a few unfashionable schmucks like me and Jesse). We all gathered around the stage and sang along to "I Gotta Know," "Fujiyama Mama," "Mean Mean Man" and about 15 other hits. Unfortunately she didn't sing "The Box." Sigh. But I did give her a copy of "Bang!" which has our version on it. I'd say there's about a 50% chance that she'll listen to it...

Here are some shots of the evening from the Nashville Scene (taken by Steve Cross-- I forgot my camera)

Sweet guitar, eh?

Yeah, so I'm pretty much content now. Thanks, Wanda.

-Emily