I spent my entire life up until I was 21 living on the eastern end of Long Island. You could say that I was totally and completely spoiled by the abundance of show venues both on Long Island and in New York City. If a small tour wasn’t hitting NYC it was more than likely going to stop on Long Island and vice versa. New York City is known as “the city that never sleeps” & I’ve had many sleepless nights there after going to a show.
In 2012 I went to Today’s Mixtape Festival on Long Island and seeing The Wonder Years, Major League, and Mixtapes, (among countless other bands) play at Revolution Music Hall in Amityville. Today’s Mixtape Festival in 2014 was amazing and took place at 89 North in Patchogue, which was a larger venue that was definitely necessary. Day one was primarily pop punk bands such as Neck Deep, Knuckle Puck, and Hit The Lights, and day two was made up of mainly hardcore bands such as Terror, Expire, and Stick To Your Guns. East Coast Collective booked awesome bands for both days (minus Front Porch Step but that’s self explanatory) and it was such a great experience. Two days of music, pizza, & hanging with friends- what’s not to enjoy?
Seeing Forever Came Calling randomly play at The Amityville Music Hall in November 2013 for only $5 was incredibly cool. It really made me appreciate the fact that I could go to a small show one night and then go to The Best Buy Theater in Manhattan the next. I never really thought about how venues were in other states because it was so normal to me to never have to worry about missing a tour that I figured it was normal. The music scene on Long Island is heavily pop punk but, like anywhere, there are bands of all genres: Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, and Stray From The Path are all LI bands.
I happened to be on Long Island this past March and went to the 2015 Mixtape Festival and got to see Title Fight, Bane, Pianos Become The Teeth, Defeater, Hotel Books, and a whole bunch of other bands at Revolution Music Hall (89 North stopped having pop punk / hardcore shows). It was amazing to see how many people were there (it was a sold out show!). The amount of people stage diving during Title Fight was unreal and the amount of people that showed up to watch the first few bands play was impressive because generally people only show up to see the headlining band.
I didn’t realize how privileged I was show-wise until I moved from Long Island to Nashville. It pains me to see new tour announcements and realize that there’s not a Nashville date and that the nearest show is at least four hours away from me. Don’t get me wrong, the music scene here is great, but it’s taking some getting used to. One of the main reasons that some tours skip Nashville is because there are either very small venues or huge stadium shows, but there aren’t many “in between” sized places, so bands are more likely to play where more of their fans will be able to go. Obviously there’s a ton of country music (Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum are from here, after all!) with various shows going on every night at different venues. I feel like people have this huge misconception about Nashville being super redneck and not progressive at all, which isn’t true. Before I moved here, so many people asked me why I wanted to move somewhere that was “the middle of nowhere” when in reality there’s so much to do, plus it’s a beautiful place. There are artists of all different genres from Tennessee including Daisyhead, Orthodox, Paramore…the list goes on! I’ve been to various shows here, and let me tell you– the scene is alive and well.
