Photos by Steve Cross. We might as well get it over with and just take a paragraph here at the beginning to talk about how fucking pretty Old 97’s frontman Rhett Miller is. The shaggy-haired crooner is movie star handsome. Tigerbeat cute. And his boyish charm somehow made the cheer-sex he was having with myriad members of the audience less than sketchy—he would lean back, let his eyes go all bedroom, and then casually strike his signature mini-windmills on his guitar. We weren’t the only ones who were impressed: A random (male) East Nashville barfly and recent Old 97’s convert remarked to us, “I don’t normally say this, but the lead singer is hot!”
