Listening to live music is an essential Nashville experience. One of the most popular places to do that is the Blue Bird Cafe. But its huge popularity and small size make it very difficult to get tickets. I set an alarm for the day tickets were released for our dates and logged on a few minutes before 9am. As soon as they became available, I put the tickets in my cart, but by the time I clicked check out, I got a message that they were sold out. It was 9:02.
So… on to plan B! I did some reading to find other great venues for live music and decided on The Listening Room Cafe. With two live acoustic performances a night (6 pm and 8:30 pm), you have the opportunity to see up to 5 performers participate in a round. After reviewing the performers scheduled for the nights we were in town, we chose to go to the regular Monday night performance by the Song Suffragettes.
The Song Suffragettes are a recurring act at the Listening Room but with rotating performers. Each show includes 5 up-and-coming female singer-songwriters, some regulars in the group and some newcomers. Their “Let the Girls Play” motto speaks to the difficulty of breaking onto the Nashville music scene as a female performer.
Ticket prices for shows at the Listening Room range from $10 – $20 and then each guest is required to spend a minimum of $15 on food and drinks. The room is large, accommodating over 250 guests at the rectangular tables set up in rows perpendicular to the stage and the round tables filling out the back near the bar. Although advanced reservations are recommended, it didn’t appear that seats were assigned until we arrived. We got there about 10 minutes early and were seated to the left of the stage. The raised stage made it so that there really weren’t any bad seats.
The food was pretty good, although relatively expensive for what it was. They had a fairly extensive menu of burgers and sandwiches, as well as some southern style entrees. Note that if you order alcohol they card everyone (including me in my late 40s and my parents in their 70s) and would not serve anyone a drink if they didn’t have their ID on them. (Guess how I know!) It was a little awkward/difficult to order your food once the show started but the wait staff managed it expertly.
Six women took the stage, 5 main performers and 1 very talented musician who accompanied them on a cajón percussion instrument. The Song Suffragettes played 3 rounds, each taking their turn playing their own songs. There was a wonderful bonus performance by the accompanist and the show ended with the group all playing a song together.
I was really impressed with the performers. Acoustic performances really highlight the guitar and vocal talents of the musicians, and I felt like the venue was setup perfectly to showcase their talents while still maintaining an environment where you could enjoy your meal. The artists were personable and talented and clearly loved being onstage with each other. Compared to the honky tonks blaring music on Broadway, this was such an enjoyable experience where you really got to listen to and appreciate the music.
