Big Ears wraps with brilliance: a Sunday recap

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It’s always interesting driving through the Old City or downtown the Monday after Big Ears.

The same streets that were bustling with activity are mostly vacant just one moonlight after the festival’s final show concludes. The lines that wrapped around Jig & Reel and the Pilot Light fade into memory. Just like that, Knoxville goes back to being, well, Knoxville.

It’s bittersweet because everyone who works the event needs a good bit of respite afterwards, but it’s also kind of eerie. What Knoxville and what attendees of the festival are left with, though, is a communal feeling that lasts much longer than an extended weekend. Big Ears is not progressive in a showy way. It just IS progressive, and those who attend leave the festival having grown in some way.

Here are a handful of notable occurrences from Sunday, along with a larger-than-usual gallery of pictures. – Rusty Odom

Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens: American Railroad

Early (by the last day of a festival’s standards) Sunday saw the Mill & Mine host the largest crowd I saw this weekend for Silkroad Ensemble featuring Rhiannon Giddens.

Silkroad is an education and performance initiative started by Yo-Yo Ma that consists of about 60 musicians. Giddens took over Ma’s position as artistic director in 2020. “‘American Railroad,’” Giddens said during the show, “was an attempt to tell the story of the transcontinental railroad – not from the point of view of those who profited from it, but from the view of those who built it and those who were displaced by it.”

This is a multi-year project that includes newly commissioned works, site visits, documentaries and recordings. In performance, the music is delicate and intriguing. The 10-piece group was missing some key players, but guest artists filled in admirably, weaving a sound that is multicultural and indescribable. For instance, in the performance of a piece by Wu-Man (Silkroad’s renowned pipa player), Niwel Tsumbu played so beautifully that I thought he had picked up a pipa. The sound is all about the group, and although Giddens is the driving force, she is more of a sideman in performance, allowing each member to shine in the appropriate spots. Indigenous artist Pura Fe, who began the show by blowing a conch shell, was a particular standout on vocals and slide guitar. – Bill Foster

Fatoumata Diawara

One of the most surprising sets of the entire festival was Fatoumata Diawara’s mid-afternoon showcase at the Mill & Mine on Sunday. The surprise being that most of the music I had heard from Diawara previously leaned more on the pop side, whereas her Big Ears show was really a traditional rock show in the truest sense. As she sported a white Fender Stratocaster and ever-changing headpieces, she led her four-piece backing band on a musical and cultural journey that felt very tropical at times. Diawara is from the Ivory Coast, so it all made sense aesthetically, and the music was as bright and uplifting as her colorful outfit and stunning beauty. Admittedly, this show wasn’t on my radar, but the timing and location of it made it all work out and just added to the magical randomness of Big Ears and how new discoveries are made. – John Flannagan

Andre 3000: New Blue Sun Live

Our publisher Rusty Odom delivered an excellent writeup about the first of these five Big Ears sets in his intro to Thursday’s action, but as he noted then, each of these improvisational shows promised to be different. And after comparing notes, Sunday’s early show at The Point seemed to be distinct in that it reflected both the gratitude the performer felt for being an integral and respected component of such a world-class festival and the comfortability the Knoxville residency had afforded him to freely explore his ambitions. While still being a thoroughly transcendent experience that showcased his ever-burgeoning musical talents, Andre Benjamin’s fourth show was a relaxed and sometimes playful affair.

The rapper-turned-flautist and his ensemble emerged from backstage to the aroma of lit incense burning at the altar and at the soundboard, with Andre taking up a position at the front of stage next to a glass of water, perched atop a traffic cone, that had a laser shining through it to create a stunning prismatic effect. As my wife and I had taken our seats at the rear of the nave, the venue’s stage manager for the weekend, a longtime friend, came up behind us and whispered into our ears, “You’re in for a treat,” indicating that the group would be incorporating the historic church’s organ into its performance. As we would soon learn, he was correct on both counts.

Using a wide range of instrumentation that included but was not limited to keys; drums; glockenspiel; a frequently employed gong; the aforementioned organ (its first usage sent goosebumps down my entire body); and a variety of vibes, cymbals and floor toms, the band created a lush, fertile soundscape that transported the audience from the bright, sunlit room to the heart of a moonlit, densely forested jungle. The indigenous rhythms were immediate yet soothing, primitive yet soulful, of ancestral origin but embodying the entire record of shared human experience. The overall impact was extraordinary, warmly fulfilling and resulted in a drifting in and out of consciousness, the kind of which I had not undergone at a Big Ears since the performance of Steve Reich’s “Music for 18 Musicians” back in 2014.

Although he paused on a couple of occasions to (in the most recognizable of speaking voices to someone who has been listening to OutKast since the mid-‘90s) honestly and humbly explain his artistic journey/process, thank the crowd for its participation and introduce his virtuosic bandmates, 3k kept the proceedings moving forward like the continuously oozing orbs of onstage lighting approximating suns and the rotating patterns (faint as they were because of the amount of natural light streaming in through the stained-glass windows) beamed onto the walls and vaulted ceiling of the structure.

At one point, though, he brought the music down to a barely audible level, killed all the lights save for a lone spotlight focused on his thin frame and began incanting in what sounded like either a foreign language or tongues. The moment, which lingered for half a minute or so, was dramatic and emotionally resonant, and the crowd held its collective breath. “Big Ears … Tennessee … From the bottom of my heart, I just made all that s*** up,” he finally admitted, cracking himself and everyone in the building up with laughter. “Man, you oughta seen all y’all’s faces, thinking I was saying some deep-a** s***!”

If the performance to that point had conveyed other earthly realms, the brief period of levity – so funny because it was so unexpected – reinstated everyone back into the present setting. But Andre had one more excursion planned for us. “Can we blast off?” he asked, requesting permission to launch the audience into the cosmos. Readily obliging, of course, we were treated to one last cathartic vortex of noise that rose beyond the physical limitations of The Point, through the atmosphere and into the vastness of space, where I’d like to think it will emanate for all of eternity. If anyone is capable of astral projection, I have to believe it’s the guy who climbed the ranks of the Dungeon Family all the way to the top of the modern new-age pyramid. – Matt Rankin

finom

finom is the project of Chicago musicians Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart, who create beautifully crafted songs behind perfect harmonies. On Sunday afternoon, they played before a packed house at Regas Square, joined by drummer Matt Carroll and rounded out by Vicky Warwick, who sometimes joins them in live settings. This band, formerly known as Ohmme, seems to really be coming into its own, now a decade into its career.

The group premiered three songs off its forthcoming album “Not God,” which was a promising collection of tracks that were well-received by the crowd. The funniest moment of the show came right before the debut of the new songs when Cunningham said they were about to play a Kate Bush cover and announced another project they had titled “Full Bush” to much laughter from the audience. After doing some research after the show, I found out that they did, in fact, perform a theatrical tribute to Kate Bush entitled “Full Bush.” Oh, the things you see, hear, and learn at Big Ears. – JF

John Paul Jones and Thurston Moore

After a technical delay, the line for the highly anticipated John Paul Jones and Thurston Moore collaboration stretched almost 360 degrees around the block upon which the Mill & Mine sits. The energy, as everyone awaited a spectacular show, was palpable. What we got instead was … inexplicable. Jones and Moore delivered an hour of sheer cacophony, without one single note that recognizably emitted from an electric guitar or bass. It was one continuous blast of noise and distortion. No swoops from delicate to thunderous, just one high level of distortion throughout. Soon, the jokes began: “Thurston Moore? Can we have Thurston-less?” “John Paul Jones saw he had a huge crowd and decided to do something about it.” My English friend even postulated that the whole thing was some sort of passive-aggressive English protest. Here is the thing, though: This is Big Ears, which is all about experimentation. It’s about weirdness and unusual music. I always say that I’d rather hear a challenging failure than a boring success. Big Ears is about the idea that music isn’t solely for enjoyment or fun but about challenging preconceptions, about experiencing music in different ways. One thing is for sure: No one who was at this show is going to forget it, and that’s what Big Ears is all about. – BF

Channel Pressure (ancillary curated music experience at Local Smokey)

While I always meant to poke my head into the newish sports bar/performance space located around the corner from the Mill & Mine at some point on Sunday to check out the event, I certainly didn’t intend to stay for as long as I did. But when a run of official Big Ears shows I was planning on attending reached capacity and I received the alerts from the app in quick succession, I settled in with a beverage and took in my first of four shows.

Knoxville’s own darkwave merchants Escort Mission, who produce a fearsome medley of dissonant electronic fuzz, brain-rattling beats and modified vocal snippets, were the fourth act of the day, so a sizable audience had long since gathered inside the ample industrial space. Having stopped by for a drink in between shows on Friday night, I had been alarmed at the cacophonous roar generated by the large crowd on hand to watch the NCAA Tournament games and sing karaoke. The din was so great that I was quite worried about what the sound quality would be like on Sunday. (Full disclosure: Channel Pressure was sponsored by this publication in conjunction with the Blom Shop.)

Considering the sort of music Escort Mission produces, it was hard to tell, but it seemed like the room was holding up well to the kind of aural stresses that are placed on a live-music venue. When Horcerer, a local band I have seen perform several times, began tearing it up at the top of the next hour, my suspicions were confirmed: Each instrument and vocal turn was coming through with crystal clarity. And when Nashville four-piece Meth Dad, an outfit featuring three (!) drummers, succeeded that thriller of a set with one of its own that sounded just as good, I started questioning my short-term memory.

DJ sets by the fantastic FKA ICE and Bunny Roolz closed down the evening’s entertainment, but not before Brandon Biondo, the curator of the program and a longtime contributor to the city’s music scene, stepped onstage to deliver an outstanding solo performance – his first live gig in five years – featuring several songs culled from the debut self-titled album by The New Romantics, his latest project. With a fog machine and blue lighting setting the mood, Biondo alternated between a two-tiered stack of synths and an electric guitar, dunking everyone in attendance in a warm sonic bath with the delicious new-wave pulses and rhythms. 

I’ve always maintained that fear of missing out is a real thing at Big Ears, but this edition proved to be even worse in that regard than previous years. The one time I found enough of a break in my schedule to make my way to the Pilot Light to try to catch a couple of What For? shows, the club was at capacity, and no one looked to be exiting anytime soon. And I missed a couple of hotly anticipated hip-hop sets – ones I had been looking forward to attending since the Big Ears lineup dropped – during the stretch of time I spent at Local Smokey.

But I also got to support the local music scene, catch some acts for the first time and see friends expand their footprint by performing in front of a diverse crowd at an unconventional venue – all with an ear-to-ear grin splashed across my face. So if FOMO is real on these weekends, so, too, is the tenet that wherever you are at any given moment is where you should be. I have no regrets, and I hope Big Ears 2024 treated everyone else just as well as it indulged me. – MR

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