Frank Turner at Bonnaroo

Back on May 1, 2007, in the early days of this site, I posted a video of English folk-punk singer Frank Turner performing his song "The Real Damage" on a barge in South London.  At the time, Frank had just released his first studio album.  I don't remember how I originally happened upon the video, but I remember being immediately taken with his impassioned acoustic performance of the song he'd written about waking up in a strange house, among strange people, with a dead cell phone and no memory of what he'd done the night before.

Three years later, after gaining increasing popularity around the world, Turner played at this year's Bonnaroo  in one of the festival's smaller tents, the Troo Music Lounge.  Just prior to the Stateside gig, Frank played a concert in Israel and earlier in 2010 he played shows in faraway countries like China and New Zealand. Even though he wasn't on one of the proper stages at Bonnaroo, his booking is recognition that his stock is rising in America.

One of the songs he performed at the festival is called "Nashville, Tennessee." No, he didn't write it specifically for the festival.  He's actually been performing it since at least 2006 (evidenced by YouTube). Watching the video, its pretty cool seeing him finally performing the song inside of the state that inspired the title. He seems to being enjoying that fact as well.


"Nashville, TN" features the lyrics:

From the heart of the Southern Downs, to the North-East London reservoirs,
From the start, the land scaped my sound, before I'd ever been to America.
And if I knew anybody who played pedal steel guitar,
I'd get them in my band and then my band would get real far,
But I was raised in middle England, and not in Nashville Tennessee,
And the only person in my band is me.