I feel super lucky to have seen Middle Tennessee rockers The Features and Glossary during my formative showgoing years. When they were active from the late ’90s through the mid-2010s — the prime of pre-It City Nashville — they set what I still think is a damn high bar for rock ’n’ roll shows.
Regular Scene readers of a certain age (of which I am one) need no introduction, but for reference: The Features' style is something like nervy New Wave with a heaping helping of garage-rock grit, while Glossary's approach is more like, say, late Southern author William Gay performing with Thin Lizzy. Let’s get my bias up front. Through watching them so much, members who I don’t know well feel like old friends, and over the years some members of both bands have become my old friends. But I’m confident that I’m not alone in my thinking.
Last week, the two groups announced a reunion show at Eastside Bowl on Saturday, Jan. 31, benefiting public and community radio stations — specifically WXNA, WNXP and WPLN — and sold it out within a day. (Shoutout to Michael Eades and Caroline Bowman-Schneider, who’ve teamed up under the name Good Signal to put on this show and ones like it.) They announced a second show for Friday, Jan. 30, and a low-ticket warning went out shortly before this writing.
Whether you’re excited to see them again or stoked to get an opportunity to catch them for the first time, now’s your chance.
