Alabama Shakes Make a Triumphant Return to Nashville

Alabama Shakes are back! After releasing their Grammy-winning second album Sound & Color in 2015 and touring to support it, the soulful Southern rock group that has become legendary in our time went on indefinite hiatus. In the meantime, frontwoman and Nashvillian Brittany Howard released two highly acclaimed solo albums, and both bassist Zac Cockrell and guitarist Heath Fogg kept working on music as well, but the Shakes as fans knew them since their meteoric rise began in 2011 were seemingly dead. Lo, there was an early Christmas miracle in December: The Shakes played a surprise reunion show in Tuscaloosa to support an independent music venue. Now they’re back on the road and better than ever with new music on the horizon. 

Friday’s show at Ascend Amphitheater kicked off with Nashville soul star Alanna Royale. In the wake of her 2023 LP Trouble Is — which recently hit its third pressing on vinyl — she’s been opening a string of dates for the Shakes. With her wig teased to high heaven and her classically cool vocals dialed in and her band on point as always, Royale provided the perfect start to the hot summer evening.

Next up, Louisiana-born folk artist Caleb Elliott charmed the crowd with his easy-breezy melodies. He brought to the stage cheeky lyricism — “passive-aggressive like a good Southerner,” as Elliott described his songs — and a stacked band, including the Shakes’ Cockrell pulling double duty. 

As the sky turned to dusk, the familiar sounds of cricket chirps and an old CCR song crept in over the loudspeakers, and at last Alabama Shakes took the stage. After a trio of songs from their debut album Boys & Girls (“Hang Loose,” “I Ain’t the Same,” “I Found You”), the band settled into a set list made up mostly of songs from Sound & Color, including all three of the bonus tracks released on the deluxe edition in 2021 during the group’s hiatus. So many of those songs written a decade ago or more speak with a prescient knowledge of our shared stresses today. “Dunes” is a perfect example — between the refrain of “I’m losing it!” repeated so often throughout the song, the lyrics alternate between a hope for something better and the unending plague of questions, as Howard wails: “I don’t know whose problem it is / I don’t know whose fuck to give.” 

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this point, but Brittany Howard knows how to work a crowd. Even before she unleashes her otherworldly voice that demands every bit of attention to be had, Howard has the audience wrapped around her finger. In the lead-up to “Miss You,” she regaled the crowd with the story behind the song, in which a family friend steals Jack Daniel’s from a parked train at Christmastime and unsurprisingly ends up doing time. She’s told the story to massive crowds before, but Howard speaks with such candor and humor that it feels as though she’s letting you in on a secret. It’s masterful, and it’s a part of why the band has endured so memorably through years of inactivity.      

“Hold On” is likely the Shakes’ most famous and oft-played song, but even still there was a feeling throughout the crowd that everyone needed to hear it on this day, in this moment. That’s the overarching message of Alabama Shakes’ discography: The idea that there’s something bigger, something better, something worth fighting for, if only we can stick together and keep going. And despite everything, Alabama Shakes have kept going. 

The band played two unreleased songs debuted during this run of shows, “American Dream” and “Another Life,” perhaps a taste of a new record to come. (Photos posted to the Shakes’ social media earlier this year certainly make it a tantalizing possibility.) The group isn’t done trying to make something better out of this world, and we shouldn’t be either. Before ending the night with “Always Alright,” Howard left her adopted hometown with a charge: “Don’t let nobody scare you inside. Don’t let nobody scare you indoors. Don’t let nobody scare you apart. We’re gonna take care of each other.”

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