“Thank you so much for sticking with us, sticking with the festival,” Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival co-founder and Better Than Ezra frontman Kevin Griffin told the crowd assembled early Sunday afternoon, exactly a year removed from the storm that ultimately caused organizers to cancel the two-day Franklin music festival in 2018. “When the mud hit the fan, y’all were there.”
At press time, it remained to be seen whether the turnout was enough to transcend last year’s debacle, to close the gap and go forward, but Pilgrimage delivered admirably Saturday and Sunday. Stadium-sized sets from first-night headliners The Killers and second-night headliners Foo Fighters put an exclamation point on a weekend’s worth of roots, rock and indie notables playing the 200-acre Park at Harlinsdale Farm.
Kacy and Clayton
The breeze rippling through the seating area around the Shady Grove made it a downright pleasant place to be during the dry heat of Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, and despite the tech crew’s best efforts, it remains a real struggle for artists playing there to be heard when someone is playing on the bigger stages at the same time. Kacy and Clayton, second cousins from Saskatchewan who’ve expanded their folk duo into a quartet, made something of a positive impression despite this challenge. Singer Kacy Anderson’s resonant vocals and guitarist Clayton Linthicum’s wiry lead lines lend a slight Fairport Convention vibe to songs from their forthcoming LP Carrying On and a cover of Joe Ely’s “Silver City.” You’ve got two chances to see them in better circumstances, opening for Ray LaMontagne at the Ryman on Oct. 29-30.
The Harpeth River Stage is set up at one end of a walking-horse arena carved into the earth near the bank of the Harpeth River. Caroline Rose, in her bright-red stage gear, was a little reminiscent of a toreador as she squinted into the sun, sizing up the small crowd that mostly huddled in the shadow of the production booth. This marked the fifth time Rose has played in our area since the 2018 release of her LP LONER.
Caroline Rose
Those who filled in the space along the front of the stage were treated to a top-tier performance from Rose and her well-seasoned New Wave-garage-punk band, as well as a new song slated for a forthcoming album. It was an actual new tune this time, not a fake-out into an Aerosmith cover like Rose pulled at Bonnaroo, and if it’s anything to go on, Rose’s next album will be even heavier on post-disco electronic dance elements. One song, of course, does not an album make, and part of the point of LONER was showcasing all the things that Rose’s songwriting can be. Onstage, she shifted naturally from hamming it up for the cameras to singing a poignant version of the LONER standout “Getting to Me” that illuminated a later comment: “It's 2019, and if you don't have some kind of depression or anxiety issue, I don't trust you as a person.”
Over on the main Midnight Sun stage, Leon Bridges unassumingly took command of a powerhouse band that shifted shape with him as he worked with an array of different styles. As pointed out during his 2018 conversation with Scene contributor Edd Hurt, Bridges’ musical interests span a wide swath, and early in his set he worked in funk, electric blues and soul informed by ’80s sounds — the last including “Shy” from 2018’s Good Thing and a reworking of “Better Man,” which was recorded in a ’60s gospel-schooled soul style for his 2015 debut LP Coming Home. It feels like Bridges is still searching for his own personal sound, but while he’s seeking it out, he’s delivering dynamite performances.
Keith Urban
Country star Keith Urban had the golden-hour slot on the Gold Record Road Stage, the second-largest on the grounds. As has been observed many times, mainstream country artists of Urban’s ilk make music that sounds more like a slightly twangier version of arena rock circa 1988 than anything you’d immediately identify as country. Even so, Urban and his snare-tight band seemed to be genuinely having a great time, and it was a treat to watch. There were anthemic tunes like “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” and a stripped-down acoustic take on Urban’s recent hit single “We Were.”
The latter is both a genuinely affecting song about nostalgia — in part because it doesn’t advocate a retreat in the past — and an understated showcase for noted guitar-shredder Urban’s six-string skills. He also left a fan with a story to dine out on for years to come. As he’s been known to do sometimes, Urban ran down the catwalk ostensibly to autograph a fan’s poster (this one read “Help me win a bet! My husband doesn’t think you will see this.”) and instead took off his guitar, signed it and handed it to her.
As youngsters tossed Frisbees and cartwheeled around their dozing parents in the fading light, The Killers — arguably the best rock band ever from Las Vegas — took the stage. The screen behind them at Midnight Sun displayed a photo of The Cars’ frontman Ric Ocasek, who died Sept. 15 at age 75. Killers frontman Brandon Flowers greeted the crowd with an acknowledgement of how much his group and rockers of all kinds since the late ’70s owe to Ocasek & Co. for the way they drew New Wave from the periphery toward the center of pop.
Flowers shouted “This night is for Ric!” as the band tore into a faithful cover of The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl.” It was a strong start to the night’s headlining set, which included perennial favorites “Somebody Told Me” and “Smile Like You Mean It,” and ended with the one-two punch of “All These Things That I’ve Done” and “When You Were Young.” The band began its encore with the 2008 single “Human,” the response to which seemed a bit lukewarm, but only in light of the signature hit that most folks probably expected, and which came right after to close the show: “Mr. Brightside,” their evergreen anthem to jealousy and regret.
Clinton-era alt-rock survivors were a through line of Sunday’s programming, along with second-generation acts. And there were plenty of cover songs — from Better Than Ezra following up an extended version of their ’96 hit “Desperately Wanting” with a campy cover of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer,” to R.E.M. acolytes Live inserting a faithful “Losing My Religion” into their set of angst-ridden relics from 1994’s eight-times-platinum Throwing Copper.
Justin Townes Earle
On the distant but breezy Harpeth River Stage, Justin Townes Earle did The Replacements proud with a mean “Can’t Hardly Wait,” and served up thoughtful snapshots of marginalized America off his recent ninth LP The Saint of Lost Causes that reaffirmed his talent — independent of but still sharing a kinship with his dad, Steve Earle. It did seem a little weird to see the younger Earle, whose substance-abuse struggles are well-documented, play a stage sponsored by Solo Cup, a product synonymous with boozy frat parties. As he sang songs about incarcerated fathers and the degradation of the environment, an anthropomorphic red plastic cup walked around high-fiving people.
Earle was the first in a trifecta of sons of famous musicians who are making great music on their own terms that played Sunday. Shooter Jennings (as you probably know, Waylon Jennings' and Jessi Colter's offspring) played the Shady Grove, and at the Gold Record Road, Willie Nelson's progeny Lukas Nelson and and his band Promise of the Real delivered a soaring take on CSN&Y’s “Carry On.” In June, they released Turn Off the News (Build a Garden), their second LP since their attention-grabbing run as Neil Young’s backing band. Their originals drew a line from Laurel Canyon at the turn of the ’70s to Seattle in the early ’90s.
Jenny Lewis
Jenny Lewis also tapped into that boomer-rock vibe, slinking around the Midnight Sun stage in head-to-toe pink sparkles, with color-coded shades, microphone and a tambourine that doubled as a makeshift fan in the 90-degree heat. “Is it too early for tequila?” the L.A. singer-songwriter asked rhetorically before her six-piece, black-tie-clad band launched into “She’s Not Me” from her 2014 album Voyager. The tune was part of a 13-song set that luxuriated in a bed of big, multi-part harmonies, resonant piano and elastic Fleetwood Mac-style grooves. The Watson Twins, who’d played a set of their own early Saturday, came up for an assist on four tunes.
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters’ headlining set was one of the loudest Pilgrimage has seen, and whatever Dave Grohl & Co.’s charged two-hour performance Sunday lacked in surprises or unscripted moments it made up for in big riffs, big feels and big fun. The megaton hooks of modern-rock classics “Monkey Wrench,” “Hey, Johnny Park!” and the unimpeachable “Everlong,” which closed the night, still pack a potent punch two decades after their initial release. Grohl, who turned 50 in January, plays with the energy to keep the band going at least another two decades. He gave the middle-aged folks in the crowd a good-natured ribbing: "Yeah, I'm old! So are you!"
In the end, the weather cooperated, the traffic was significant though not impossible to navigate, and there were tons of families enjoying a weekend out. (Seeing the Foo Fighters or The Killers as your first rock show isn’t a bad place to start.) There’s always room for improvement — bringing outstanding black artists like Adia Victoria, Devon Gilfillian and The War and Treaty (the last of whom was recently crowned Americana Music Association Emerging Act of the Year) further into the afternoon and evening time slots might help them catch the eyes and ears they deserve. The likelihood that there will be a Pilgrimage in 2020, in which organizers can make those kinds of changes, seems strong.
