It was only when I walked into EXIT/IN on the last night of August when I realized that Jade Street had booked their Nashville debut in an auspicious venue. One of the few 1970s venues in town that are still open and regularly hosting concerts, it has maintained a reputation for showcasing talent outside of the Nashville monoculture. Its intimate size seemed to be perfect for the band, and the overall ambience encouraged lively chatter and excitement about the night’s performance.
Jude Parrish, an alternative rock artist from Texas, opened for the band and skillfully set the mood for the night. Only a handful of people came early, and no one likes playing to a sparse crowd, but Parrish and his band were in full swing and played like they were entertaining a full stadium. Parrish has a good-sized body of work, but his talents were best displayed in his opening song, “Perfect Places”, where his drummer and bassist laid down a driving beat on which he delivered a reminiscent tune about days and bonds long gone. Immediately following Parrish was Mick Hooley, who is a sophomore student at Vanderbilt and occasionally deejays. His short set was greatly appreciated by the crowd that had started to amass in EXIT/IN.
In the weeks prior to the gig, Jade Street pasted simple, straight-to-the-point stickers across campus and in the surrounding area. Their advertising campaign succeeded in attracting a crowd that I believe was entirely Vanderbilt students, many of whom knew the band members personally. Of course, it’s always nice to be among friends, and the audience had a lively and anticipatory spirit. Most of them had never seen Jade Street perform before and had high expectations.
Finally, Jade Street hit the stage at 9:50 P.M., to much applause. Composed of lead singer Zach Zwelling and guitarist Eli Meyuhas, with Jacob Fisher and Nic Lung on bass and drums, respectively, as special guest players for this concert, the band seemed to be greatly pleased at the show’s turnout. They opened their set with a skillful cover of The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Cherub Rock”, which functioned as a perfect segue into their first original song, “Bad Man”, which is their first song to be released. In this song, Zwelling’s raw vocals laid down the tune for a song that on its face is heady and confessional, but is given bouyance and a triumphal sound by its driving beat and a dutiful performance on the guitar and bass by Meyuhas and Fisher.
The band followed their debut single with the unreleased track “Politics” – an upbeat, catchy tune that belied its title. Lung showed his prowess on the drums in original songs “June” and “Feels like Green”, and Meyuhas delivered a marvelous guitar performance in their cover of “Supersonic” and their original piece “Satellites”. The latter, which Meyuhas said to be his favorite on the setlist, had an atmospheric air to it that was highlighted by Zwelling’s downtempo melody. They ended their set with what they meant to be one encore performances “Bad Man”, but, at the insistence of the baying crowd, escalated into four.
Throughout the night, the men of Jade Street were exuberant and confident in their talent. It was clear that they fed off the energy of the crowd, which was ecstatic to see what they had been working on for the whole summer, and pulled out all the stops to give them a worthy performance. Looking forward, I am sure their next Nashville show will be a highly anticipated event.