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| | These events were, in some ways, standard benefit concerts with multiple artists touching down on the stage in endless succession, their quick turns punctuated by public service announcements and pleas for donations. But an important difference gave these shows a power even historical charity fests like Live Aid or, more recently, the concerts for Charlottesville and Ukraine, did not have. Those mega-events were anchored by notables reaching out toward perceived victims who, even when able to join in the shows, remained mostly at a distance. Love Rising and We Will Always Be came about because LGBTQIA+ people themselves willed them into being. Allison Russell, the singer-songwriter whose recent commercial breakthrough has shed so much light on Nashville’s potential as a home to a truly progressive music scene, was a main driver, as were artist-activist-entrepreneurs Hunter Kelly and Holly G, whose work on efforts like Rainbow Pride and the Black Opry have been reshaping Nashville’s scene for a while now. Allies behind the scenes supported their vision without stepping into the space they needed to define. From the ground up, these events brought together community members holding space for each other instead of foregrounding well-intentioned stars swooping in to do a good deed. Instead of staging tableaus in which marginalized people were trotted out for public consumption, these events created the chance for LGBTQIA+ folk to stand front and center and hail each other in power and hope. Love Rising did suffer from one major obstacle: To fill the 20,000-seat venue, major names were required. (Take a look at the poster if you want to know the big names who showed up, read these reviews to learn how these allies maximized their connections to the LGBTQIA+ community through song selection and featured collaborators, and listen to this playlist to hear everyone that performed at both events.) All of their advocacy wouldn’t have mattered, though, if not for the many queer, nonbinary and trans artists whose time at the mic brought something truly new to this hockey arena, where in any other circumstances only (overwhelmingly cis-het) megastars can claim space. The list was long, reminding me just how crucial LGBTQIA+ artists are within Nashville’s current musical ecosystem: Autumn Nicholas, Fancy Hagood, Izzy Heltai, Shea Diamond, Cidny Bullens, Sparkle City Disco, Wrabel. The show opened with Jake Wesley Rogers, Bowie-glowing in silver sequins, damning his own erasure with “Pluto.” “Hate on me, hate on me, hate on me, hate on me,” he wailed, executing a backbend. “You might as well hate the sun.” Rogers was followed by that aforementioned array of artists who, at this point in their careers, would have never expected to stand before such a vast crowd cheering them on. Some, like Nicholas, seized the spotlight with such force it felt like an anointment. Others embraced their own vulnerability. Adeem the Artist — whom I’d last seen playing in a local record store’s backyard to maybe 20 people — joked that this was “the largest karaoke crowd I’ve ever sung to,” and stressed the mix of “jubilation and fear” they felt, enveloped by love but aware that the threats just beyond the arena doors remain urgent. Joy Oladakun, whose next album should gain the mass audience her wildly catchy, heartfelt songs deserve, spoke of a time when she felt she could not come out and expressed faith in the cyclical nature of life. Heltai, whose quiet presence created a kind of reverse osmosis in that huge space, declared that he would not have survived without gender-affirming care before singing the poignant “All of This Beauty.” As his voice silenced the crowd, what would have been a touching moment in a nightclub setting became transcendent. Most stirring was Mya Byrne, who is emerging as the warrior this crisis requires, having released two anthems (one with Paisley Fields) in just the past couple of weeks. Performing with her artistic and life partner Swan Real, Byrne commanded the stage like a 21st-century Rolling Stone. She finished by embracing Real in a truly epic kiss, after which Real declared, “That’s trans love, people. Trans people are easy to love.” The gesture felt visceral, risky, sexy. Happening smack in the middle of the long parade of people living truth and singing about it, it was the kind of catharsis that demands real action as a follow-up. At the City Winery the following night, things began in a quieter but no less fully visible and audible way. Two short songwriters’ rounds organized by Kelly and Holly G featured, first, all LGBTQIA+ singer-songwriters, and then a stellar lineup from the Black Opry. I’ve seen so many similar intimate exchanges among Nashville’s songwriting elite, but the fundamental — and casual — queerness and Blackness of these two built a new Music City on that stage. Standout performances included Chris Housman’s ode to a drag queen who’s “never a drag” and the rousing testimony of the Black Opry’s Ally Free, a trans performer who shouted out his mom in the audience and sang of surviving suicidal thoughts, building a chorus around the phrase “I’m not giving up just yet.” He received a standing ovations. These rounds showed that the only way a real paradigm shift can happen is through strength in numbers; that’s what changes a marginalized person’s audibility from mutely representative to resounding. The night proceeded with many singer-songwriters making quick appearances — including outstanding turns from Charleston’s She Returns From War and The Shindellas and a perfect closer from Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris, “Drag Queens and Limousines.” interspersed with these warmly connected artists were those performers at the center of current debate — the toweringly charismatic drag queens who, for the past few years, have regularly appeared at City Winery’s Sunday drag brunches. So many appeared that I can’t list all of their names (you can find them here, though!). Suffice to say that host Vivica Steele and her sisters fully commanded the City Winery space, strutting and snaking through the crowd collecting tips, flipping hair and throwing hands to the delight of the audience. It was, in truth, a strange juxtaposition — the quiet singer-songwriters and the clamorously out drag performers — yet it made perfect sense: This is Nashville, a city that prides itself on its welcoming nature, but whose acceptance of queer culture has taken time, a lot of work and the will to set aside stylistic and other personal differences in the name of uplifting the whole community. In a state like Tennessee, where communities are smaller than, say, in New York, and where oppositional forces don’t distinguish between one “kind” of LGBTQIA+ persona and another, surprising alliances are central to survival. The We Will Always Be benefit (for the aptly named Inclusion Tennessee) made manifest the spirit that keeps activists going even in a state like Tennessee, where queer lives have been historically deeply underacknowledged. It’s still crucial to address differences and power dynamics, but just as I saw in Alabama, at these shows I witnessed people looking beyond their own small circles and, in doing so, changing the baseline of who can be seen and heard, and what can be said. “Intersectionality!” Vivica, the night’s emcee, shouted at one point, executing a high leg kick; that word may be as overused and misunderstood as “visibility” these days, but in that moment, it glowed in the dark. |
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