Nashville Turns Out — and Turns Up — on Record Store Day

Third Man Records and The Blue Room offered a choose-your-own-adventure model on Record Store Day, with a mellow vibe inside the shop and four ferocious sets starting at 11 a.m. in the venue space. Pop-ups from Danger Zone Video, East Nashville Books and more offered retail options, while Clownsums Diner and Secret Bodega provided sustenance in the courtyard. The crowd was packed and varied, the best kind of daytime show: Two-steppers thrashed in the mosh pit while families stood a safe distance away, their kids wearing ear-protecting headphones and tiny X’s on the backs of their hands.

Bria McCollum, who performs as Ergo, Bria, led her opening set with baroque, Kate Bush-style keys. McCollum’s voice is dynamic and ethereal — one moment she’s whispering over discordant guitar riffs, and in the next she’s pushing her impressive vocal power to its breaking point. Her singing shone in original compositions like “Fairweather” and “Never Had a Chance” as well as an intoxicating cover of Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box.”

Most Improved followed after, a lo-fi rock band with a Britpop-meets-Southeast vibe and shades of Chicago’s Twin Peaks. Their set was kinetic: Jomby Graziano, who’s credited with “guitar, singing and fuzz” on the duo’s September single M.I., jumped and kicked in the air, while drummer Bram Fairhead held the line with a steady, driving beat.

Herly Berly came next, ripping into high-impact grunge to the tune of Veruca Salt and Kim Deal. “I love how blue it is in here,” quipped lead vocalist and guitarist Willow Selander after a powerhouse performance of the group’s 2023 single “Shove It.” Herly Berly has been teasing new music, and they announced onstage they’d just finished recording it. As the band tore into another song, Selander unleashed a scream and a pit of femmes grew in the front, laughing and thrashing together.

Nashville fixtures Soot finished off the day with driving experimental post-hardcore. Frontman Micah Mathewson took the stage wearing a Richard Dawson shirt, and imbued the brain-melting set with a subtle sense of humor. At one point, he handed a retro-style video game controller into the crowd, allowing the audience to control the distortion; at another, he jumped off the stage and walked out the door before finding his way back, singing the whole time. Soot also has a new release coming. To round out their performance, they played some as-yet-unreleased music with a slower core and a gloomy feel — the perfect cool-down to send the audience blinking back out into what sunlight there was on Saturday.

The day came and went in Music City with few if any notable hitches. Spirits seemed dampened by neither a chilly breeze nor some weirdness from the camp of rap star Kanye West, who has recently been denied entry to the U.K. and had other concerts canceled in Europe due to his odious antisemitic comments. In case you missed it, West’s team shipped unsolicited copies of his latest album to a bunch of indie shops under the guise of an unofficial RSD surprise. Management at Grimey’s confirms they were among the recipients of an unwanted shipment, which did not go on store shelves and, as far as they know, no customers expressed interest in.

Meanwhile at Vinyl Tap, the record store, bar and East Nashville hangout space at the southwest corner of Porter Road and Greenwood Avenue, live sets got underway around noon, staggered between the indoor stage and an ad-hoc tented area behind the building. There were also booths where local labels hawked records, plus vintage clothiers who — with the threat of rain touch-and-go all day — no doubt sold out of windbreakers. Unbilled but stealing the show was Gizzard, an uncannily laid-back, people-friendly raccoon. The photogenic 20-pound trash panda is the educational ambassador raccoon for the Vermin Sanctuary — a local nonprofit “dedicated to the rescue, care and release of injured and orphaned native wildlife” — and kept the crew busy all day.

Jeremy Fetzer’s high-energy, high-atmosphere instrumentals were also a huge hit. The 38-year-old Buckeye State native is a longtime local instrumentalist and producer. He was one-half of Steelism — a 2010s Nashville secret too well-kept — and recently released a new solo LP called An Evening at the Fetzicon Lounge. Fetzer and his five-piece ensemble didn’t waste a second, throwing psych-punk, surf rock and spy-thriller music together in ecstatic fashion. Things reached a fever pitch with the closer, “Mr. Lou.” A cover of a technically new (2008) but old-school-sounding surf number from a fellow gang of land-locked would-be surfers, Germany’s Space Rangers, it’s a nod to “Misirlou,” as made a hard-charging surf classic by Dick Dale. “Such a workout,” Fetzer told the Scene with a laugh afterward. “Playing [“Mr. Lou”], you never know you’ll make it to the end, but just have to rely on that reverb.”

That performance surely ought to have moved a few copies of Fetzicon Lounge. Nicole Atkins has a new LP on the way — though details are scarce as yet, it’s her first in six years, sixth in total and first for Memphis’ Sun Records (!) — and it would have been flying off the shelves too, if you could buy it yet. As it was, her outdoor performance was a ray of light on this gloomy day. The set was irrepressibly funky and communal-feeling, with the crowd huddling close under the tent to stay dry, and its musicality was matched only by its sense of fun. Her vulnerable yet authoritative voice translated even in the days of COVID lockdown livestreams, but in person it was electric. Bet on this record to be a fixture on year-end lists by the time 2026 is up.

Country songsmith Emily Nenni stood out even when she was lending vocal assists at Teddy and the Rough Riders’ release show for their eponymous LP almost four years ago. Returning the favor, Rough Rider six-stringer Jack Quiggins headed up Nenni’s backing band. The NorCal native’s third solo LP Movin’ Shoes hits shelves May 1, and the band was raring to go Saturday, with a slate of self-assured, timeless-sounding tunes that seek and find levity amid life’s heaviness.

There was much more on the bill throughout the day and into the evening. Just a taste of what else was on deck: Bleary (shoegaze staples whose debut LP Little Brain is out May 15), Ultrafrog (an intriguing new electronic project from Country Westerns’ Brian Kotzur and Blank Range’s Jonathon Childers), a suite of protest songs from Alanna Royale and a DJ set from beleaguered but unbowed mayor Freddie O’Connell (apparently a big Magnetic Fields fan).

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Nashville Record Store Day 2026 Quick-Reference Guide

• Hannah Cron