Back in September, word came that the proprietors of the four-story venue complex on Cannery Row — composed of Cannery Ballroom, Mercy Lounge, The High Watt and One (which is mostly used as a private-event space) — will be closing down once their lease is up in May. The announcement noted that the Mercy crew hopes to open up shop in another location. A little while later, the new owner of the property, Zach Liff, announced that he plans to host venues in the space that will become vacant. However it all turns out, the role that the Cannery venues have played in the local music ecosystem over the past two decades is immense and the memories of shows impossible to replicate.
When I wrote about the upheaval in Nashville's midsize venue market for the Scene's Stories to Watch issue, I mentioned the importance of those locales in the arc of widely loved rock band All Them Witches. I could just has easily have mentioned Bully, the outstanding grunge-kissed rock outfit fronted by singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer-engineer Alicia Bognanno.
They've played Mercy Lounge heaps of times over the past 10 years. One of the first of those (perhaps the first?) was as the opening act at the Cream's very own Sounds Like Summer party in July 2013, followed that October by an appearance with Those Darlins and Adia Victoria. The next spring, they played a round of the Road to Bonnaroo contest at Mercy and opened for Superchunk there a few days later. After they'd been all around the world touring behind their 2015 debut LP Feels Like, they came back home for a three-night stand at Mercy Lounge in December 2017, the first of which our live-review column The Spin caught. Last year, when they could finally hit the road with songs from their 2020 album Sugaregg, Bully stopped in for a two-nighter at Mercy as well.
Before the current iteration of the venue closes, Bully is coming back one more time to give the place a proper sendoff. Per a tweet, they'll be there on Saturday, April 2; tickets will go on sale Friday, Feb. 11. The show hasn't been added to the venue's calendar yet, but you'll want to look there for the ticket link. Update, Feb. 11: Here's that ticket link.
As he's been known to do, local-scene documentarian extraordinaire Stephen "TompDogg" Thompson filmed a night of Bully's 2017 Mercy run in full. While you wait for those tix to become available, stream his video of Bully's set from Dec. 15, 2017.
