Thursday night turned into a minor show-hopping adventure, when we showed up at 12th and Porter much too early to hear the Brooklyn-based band, Hank & Cupcakes, open up for Garrison Starr’s CD Release Show. To kill some time in a productive, yet entertaining way, we decided to saunter over to Mercy Lounge, where Tallest Trees, Kopecky Family Band, and Kyle Andrews were playing. Much to our dismay, we arrived to hear that Tallest Trees would no longer be performing–something about the lead singer falling over the side of an escalator…? That’s a lie. We heard the poor guy just had bronchitis, but we didn’t care too much because that just meant that we cut to the chase with hearing Nashville’s darling little indie group, Kopecky Family Band, who were just delightful.
They played mostly songs from “The Disaster” EP, and chose to open up the show with the jangly pop tune “Howlin’ at the Moon,” which is from their brand new collection of B-sides “(Of Epic Proportions).” The always-energetic group then launched into several of their most CMJ/NPR buzzworthy songs “Birds,” and “Lucky,” where their classical influences shined alongside Kelsey Kopecky and Gabe Simon’s floating harmonies. Towards the end of “God & Me,” the entire band (all seven of them) proved that they are deserving of the attention they’ve been receiving as of late, with a climactic choir of “woah’s” and the usual Kopecky on-stage antics, i.e. dancing and tambourines being thrown haphazardly in all directions.
Afterwards, we skedaddled back to 12th and Porter, hoping to catch Garrison Starr. Unfortunately, we were only able to hear the DnB dance duo, Hank & Cupcakes. When we say “unfortunately,” we actually mean fortunately, because they sweetly shocked our systems more than a boom box in a library and left us wanting to go out booty-dancin’ into the wee hours at Graham Central Station. Too bad they won’t be playing in Nashville again sooner. They were the perfect end to our Thursday night.--Erin Manning