30/11/2024
January 2025!
It’s time.
Oh, sweet friends, is it ever time.
Mark your calendars (for Jan. 30, Jan. 31 and Feb. 1). Get a sitter. Call an Uber. Get a hotel room. Whatever you do, make places to be at Relix Variety Theatre for Waynestock XIII, because it’s going to be so many things for so many people.
First of all, it’s a worthy cause, because this year’s beneficiary is RadioKCM, a subsidiary of Knoxville Community Media. The upstart organization is a response to the dust kicked up in the local radio scene back in the spring, and money raised at Waynestock will help purchase equipment so that sweet “On the Air” light shines brightly soon enough.
Secondly, it’s medicine for the weary soul. Last year was a so*******ch, to quote a certain singer-songwriter, and in late January, certain occurrences in the federal seats of power will serve as a glaring reminder. Waynestock is the place where you can leave all that behind. Inside the doors of our forever home in Happy Holler, it’s nothing but love, baby, because nothing feels more like a family reunion than Waynestock.
There are good reasons for that, but a big one is the way Waynestock has long served as a balm for pain. Hell, it was born out of tragedy, but that’s what we do in Knoxville: Get together and make it better by rocking out. Which is exactly what we’re gonna do.
Thursday is a tribute to a beloved friend we lost too soon this year, Laith Keilany. It’s only appropriate, we think, that the trio of songwriters who kick it off – featuring new up-and-comer Moran and veteran rocker and tunesmith Kevin Abernathy – includes Singer Songwriter, Karen E. Reynolds, one of the beneficiaries whose health struggles served as last year’s Waynestock cause.
They’ll be followed by the Jodie Manross Band, of which Laith was long a part, and then the sounds of that Americana pistol, Trisha Gene Brady, and her new band the In-Betweens. Christina Horn’s Feral Kytty project brings night one to a close.
Night two begins with the lovely Appalachian folk-and-roll of The Lonetones, leading right into the psychedelic cumbia/Appalachian soupcon that is Rica Chicha. At 9 p.m., we’re over-the-moon thrilled to welcome a reunion of the man who set a world record at Bonnaroo for most hugs given and the band that rocked with him there: Jonathan Sexton and The Big Love Choir! Thrift Store Cowboys and The New Romantics - Knoxville carry us on to the end of night two, which will be brought to a close by the indefatigable Mercy Lights, one of our favorite bands ever.
Saturday begins with the delicate grooves of Shayla McDaniel and her band, followed by the ethereal alt-country of nightjar. Brendon James Wright & the Wrongs mark a first-time Waynestock appearance for a guy who hasn’t played with his old outfit in a hot minute, and we can’t wait to hear what Tennessee Love Connection brings to the Waynestock stage. Night three also includes the reunion of Medford's Black Record Collection for only the second time since 2011, and if that doesn’t make you excited to hear some murder ballads and foot-stomping country rock, we don’t know what will.
Finally, the finale. Last year, Beare curated a mind-blowing eulogy to all of the artists lost in 2023, and after Wayne Kramer of the MC5 died during last Waynestock weekend, they worked up a cover of “Kick Out the Jams” with six guitarists, two or three vocalists and a hundred fans in the audience screaming deliriously to every lyric. It was truly a spectacle to behold, and the fact that they’re pledging to outdo themselves this year has us on the verge of ecstasy.
And you can be a part of it all. It’s only $10 per night at the door, and that includes a raffle ticket. We’ve got a great group of sponsors helping us with this annual undertaking, including Blank Newspaper, CIRCA Wear, Top Hat Recording, Sweet P's Barbeque & Downtown Dive, Raven Records & Rarities, The Arbor Studio, Fusion Backline and Next Level Brewing Company. Can’t say enough about all those folks, because if it weren’t for them (and Daniel over at Relix), we’d be just a trio of dudes with big ideas and not much else.
Y’all … we need this, and we think you do too. Just a couple of months from now, we’re gonna hug you so fierce you may need oxygen, and we expect you to give it right back.
Love y’all. Let’s rock. Viva le Waynestock.
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