Recaps of each day: Day One: Thursday • Day Two: Friday • Day Three: Saturday • Day Four: Sunday
The team behind Big Ears has created an even more immersive experience than in years past.
There are people everywhere in downtown Knoxville this weekend. From The Point to the Civic Auditorium complex and from the Bijou to Barley’s, the city is on fire with new faces, different languages and beards of all kinds. You wouldn’t believe it.
The BLANK crew ran back and forth between the two floors of Barley’s as Friday neared its end, and after Tennessee’s big basketball win was enjoyed on the TVs upstairs, it was party time downstairs at Go Kurosawa. Here are a few of our favorites from day two. – Rusty Odom
Ghost Train Orchestra: The Music of Moondog
For some of us, the music of Moondog is a touchstone – he’s that artist who enticed us to think, “Hey, there’s something avant-garde that’s actually very pretty and easily relatable.” A longtime fixture in New York City, Moondog (whose given name was Louis Hardin) was a blind man who regularly dressed as a Viking and drummed while reciting poetry, generally on 6th Avenue. However, he was also writing classical, jazz, pop and folk music and wowing professionals in those realms, including the likes of Charlie Parker, Leonard Bernstein, Philip Glass and Janis Joplin. Moondog sometimes blended all those styles into one.
In 2023, the Ghost Train Orchestra and the Kronos Quartet, along with special guests, recorded a full album of Moondog’s works. Friday at Big Ears, the 13-piece orchestra presented most of that work at the Tennessee Theatre, and it was wonderful. Many special guests from the album were in tow, including Joan as Police Woman, Karen Mantler (the daughter of legendary duo and Big Ears veterans Carla Bley and Michael Mantler) and Sam Amidon. David Byrne, who seemed to be all over downtown, stepped in to perform “High on a Rocky Ledge.”
Tune-Yards
“We’re still on Pacific time,” quipped Merrill Garbus near the beginning of the set, “so this is like morning exercise for us.” The adage that you receive the energy you give held true, and soon enough everyone was getting in an early workout – our step routine guided by Tune-Yards’ raucous genre-blending fusions. The duo must have felt the appreciation from the crowd, too, as Garbus went on to gush that she had been dying to play Big Ears again and was over the moon to be here. The crowd got fully involved during “How Big Is the Rainbow,” and Garbus and bandmate Nate Brenner used the closing crescendo to lead into a mashup of their 2010 hit “Powa” with the drums from Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” and the vocals from Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name Of.” A fully engaged crowd held on while they closed with their hits, including the infectious “Bizness.” The spirited set proved to be an incredible tone-setter for an incredible day – and a great calisthenic warmup, to boot. – Daniel Britt
BASIC
My first show of the day was also my first stop at a new Big Ears venue for 2026, Barley’s. The venue has held concerts for two decades, so it only made sense that it would become an official venue for the festival at some point. BASIC performed a guitar-driven set heavy on improvisation and jams. Jam-rock has been a theme at this year’s installment of Big Ears – something I haven’t seen much in past installments. The three-piece outfit from Philadelphia started most of its songs as experimental rock before guitarist Chris Forsyth took over, performing blistering trance-like grooves. The band was in total sync, performing long-form instrumentals for over an hour: no lyrics, no banter, just unadulterated rock. Drummer Mikel Patrick Avery, who played a bass drum with some electronics mixed in, provided a solid backbeat. The veteran musicians delighted the early afternoon crowd and set a nice tone for the day. – John Flannagan
Dave Harrington & Mary Lattimore
Fresh from his triumphant swan song with Taper’s Choice the night before, Harrington teamed up with Lattimore, the renowned harpist who embraces collaboration just as much as the versatile guitarist, for a midafternoon performance at the Greyhound. Initially, his warm tones sounded a bit at odds with her piercing plucks, but looping and fills added needed texture and bridged the gap in the instrumentation. The duo had established a tasty groove by the time it wrapped up its first composition halfway through the set and continued unfettered for the remainder. – Matt Rankin
Laurie Anderson: What War Is This? What Time Is It?
I’ve never seen Laurie Anderson perform and not left the show feeling inspired. She’s a performance artist, monologist, violinist and artistic provocateur. Dating back to at least 1981 when she released the single “O Superman,” a combination of spoken-word poetry and tape loops, she’s been an unpredictable agent for opening minds with art full of humor and humanity.
Her new work, “What War Is This? What Time Is It?,” presented at the Tennessee Theatre, tackled our troubled current political climate by finding quotes from past and present philosophers, from Marcus Aurelius to Cornel West, and combining them with personal stories. With a jumping-off point that she was asked to present a program on the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, Anderson led the audience through tales of her childhood. At 13 years old, she wrote a letter to then-senator John F. Kennedy asking for advice about running for student council and received the advice and later a bouquet of flowers from him when she won. Then she related her grandfather’s not-so-honest accounts of his early life, augmented with AI art (with all the mistakes of AI art intact) projected on a screen behind her. Near the end, she took a break to play a recording of the late “word jazz” originator Ken Nordine (somewhat of a spiritual predecessor to Anderson) reciting his story “Fibberty Jib,” which tells a tale about a town that followed charismatic speakers of nonsense before returning to relate a dream in which she converses with Sigmund Freud.
Jeff Parker Expansion Trio
The current lofty stature in the jazz world of Parker, Jeremiah Chiu and Ben Lumsdaine, the musicians who comprise this new collective, belies their individual backgrounds in indie, punk and folk rock, but those prior inclinations were palpable in Friday’s performance at the Mill & Mine. Fusing their extensive understanding of music theory with more populist tendencies, the trio achieved a transcendental rhythm as it constructed a gorgeous and intuitive yet enigmatic and unpredictable movement. – MR
Terry Allen with the Panhandle Mystery Band & Jo Harvey Allen: Members
Allen is a national treasure out of Lubbock, Texas, whose brand of Americana, storytelling and family values has delighted fans for half a century. I caught the second half of this performance after intermission, and it was easily the best decision I made all weekend. Allen’s second set was heavy on his classic 1975 album “Juarez” but included other gems scattered in, like 2020’s “Death of the Last Stripper,” which might’ve been the highlight of this set. While we thought we might get a surprise David Byrne (he was in attendance) cameo like the previous incarnation in which they both appeared and presented “Buck Naked,” from Byrne’s 1994 self-titled album, at the Tennessee Theatre, the straight cover also was a highlight. Allen’s drawl reminded me of fellow Texan Robert Earl Keen at times, as did his storytelling, which was quintessential West Texas. – JF
Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage
Lewis is an extraordinary songwriter whose work drips with unmatched humor, acerbic wit, hyperliterate references and deep historical knowledge, but the music to which his prose is set slaps, too. His show at Barley’s exhibited all of the above and was an unexpected highlight of my Friday as a result. From moving spoken-word passages to galloping indie rock to swooning ballads, the anti-folk standout, with three sublime players in tow, delivered one great number after another.
It is hard to pick a favorite – the lyrical behemoth that is “The Story of Vietnam” made a substantial impression; the bittersweetness of “Don’t Be Upset” was enhanced considerably by Mallory Feuer’s weeping violin; and “Except for the Fact That It Isn’t” was a mopey yet fun deviation in style – but closer “100 Good Things” served as a microcosm of all the considerable faculties Lewis, perhaps one of the most undervalued artists of his generation, has in his locker. – MR
Saha Gnawa
Jazz-guitar great John Scofield has been stopping in Knoxville for concerts since the 1980s, not long after he left Miles Davis’ group. If you’ve performed with Davis, there’s no doubt you’re at the top of your game because Davis would accept no less. As his own bandleader and sometime solo artist, Scofield has spent the past 40 years forging his own path, stretching the boundaries of jazz and becoming one of the most toneful and tuneful players in music. Friday, with drummer Bill Stewart and bassist Vincente Archer, Scofield and company delivered a lovable set of new compositions and old favorites.
Model/Actriz
I was about to call it a day after Saha Gnawa’s stellar show at a capacity Barley’s, but I summoned the strength to push on to the Mill & Mine for a nightcap. Once there, this Brooklyn four-piece provided enough of a jolt that I persevered all the way through its set, as well as Go Kurosawa’s clinical crash course in psych rock back at Barley’s afterwards.
Frontman Cole Haden is a manic bundle of energy onstage; even if you were tired, he would not allow you to rest. Wildly gesticulating for and audibly demanding audience participation, he whipped the crowd into a frenzy as his bandmates pounded out a throbbing post-punk/noise-rock din so intense that I had to break out earplugs for the first time this weekend.
A transfixing figure who menacingly prowls the platform while singing, Haden proved to be endearingly genuine in his banter between songs. Acknowledging the local lineage that binds him to the area and the fact that his mother attended the University of Tennessee, he namechecked Knoxville countless times. If your Big Ears bingo card included hearing “Go Vols” growled out just before the start of a pummeling industrial banger, congratulations; I certainly didn’t. – MR
