The Best of AMERICANAFEST 2024

AMERICANAFEST is an assault on the senses. With hundreds of parties, official and unofficial, going on in dozens of venues throughout Nashville, there's so much choice you risk being paralyzed with indecision. For our part, we caught 45 shows across a eight venues and, while we saw a few bands we probably wouldn't buy an album from (remember, friends, buy your music), we didn't catch anything that wasn't good. That said, only a few can be the best. Here are the best things we saw at AMERICANAFEST 2024.

Best of the Fest- Amythyst Kiah and Danielle Nicole
At this point, I should probably disqualify Amythyst Kiah from getting “Best of the Fest” and give some other people a chance. She has, I think, won it every time she has played the festival and I have seen her. And she just keeps getting better. Pulling heavily from her forthcoming album Still + Bright, Kiah blended her standard blues and Americana with elements of symphonic metal and classic rock for a sound that is like no other.

This year, Kiah has to share her award with Danielle Nicole. Of the three bands I saw Wednesday night at Exit/In, she was the one I knew nothing about. Boy, had I been missing out. Sounding like what would happen if Janis Joplin fronted The Jimi Hendrix Experience, her power trio blasted through 45 minutes of pure blues-rock fury and I was there for it. For intensity, this was by far the set of the weekend.

Best Work Ethic- Secret Emchy Society and Amelia White
The old saying is “work smarter, not harder.” But there's something to be said for working harder and nobody at AMERICANAFEST 2024 worked harder than these two. Cindy Emch of Secret Emchy Society made the trip from California and made the most out of racking up all those airline miles. Over the court of AMERICANAFEST's six days, Emch curated three events (including a 9 hour-long house show) and performed at five. All of these performances helped promote either her fellow Bay Area roots musicians or the Queer Country community. I was able to catch her at her official Showcase on Saturday night at The 5 Spot, my first time seeing her with her full band, and her brand of hard-living, hard-drinking, hard-rocking country music kept the packed audience entertained, even with her playing the dreaded 11 pm final slot of the festival, when many fest goers are either headed home or too tired to rock.

While Amelia White might not have had as far to travel as Emch, living in East Nashville, but that didn't stop her from putting the work in during AMERICANAFEST week. Over the course of the festival, White performed at seven official and non-official events. I was able to catch her at two of these; the official East Coast Social Club showcase at The Bowery Vault and the unofficial Americanamitzvah event at the Love and Exile Bar. In both cases, White showed why she's been dubbed “The Queen of the East Nashville Underground.”

Best Import- Tami Neilson
A New Zealander by way of Canada, Tami Neilson is no stranger to Nashville. In addition to having played a number of shows at AMERICANAFEST in the past, Neilson was also, as a child, a member of The Neilsons, a family band that used to be regular performers at Opryland, a, sadly, now defunct Nashville amusement park that Neilson referenced from the stage when I saw her at the Lightnin' Management Medicine Show at 3rd and Lindsley on Thursday, noting that the city had literally paved over Opryland to put up a parking lot (attached to a tacky shopping mall). Neilson's blend of classic country and rockabilly is a crowd pleaser whenever she plays AMERICANAFEST and her booming voice almost needs no amplification to be heard.

Best Genre Blender- Hawktail
A supergroup made up of crack musicians Jordan Tice, Brittany Haas, and Paul Kowert, Hawktail defies any type of genrefication you might want to put on them. With a bluegrass core, the trio mixes elements of jazz, Americana, rock, and chamber music into a sound that is like no other. I got to seem them open AMERICANAFEST on Tuesday night, first with a solo set and then backing up Aoife O'Donovan. In both sets, jaws dropped as the band displayed an instrumental virtuosity that refused to acknowledge genres exist.

Best Find- The Kentucky Gentlemen
This is normally where Danielle Nicole would go if she hadn't been so good as to take my “best of” slot. But that's ok because I had another AMERICANAFEST discovery that nearly rivaled them; The Kentucky Gentlemen. Mixing classic country riffs with Bobby Brown-esque r&b vocals and moves, The Kentucky Gentlemen dazzled The 5 Spot on Saturday night with a set high on kinetic energy and infectious hooks.

Best Party Atmosphere- Paisley Fields
As one of the current standard-bearers for Queer Country, Paisley Fields has a lot of baggage to carry around in one 45 minute set. But you wouldn't know it from his show, which is a fun, often raunchy, and always musically on-point party. Whether he's unleashing the least subtle Queer Country song in history (“Ride Me Cowboy”) or his protest song (“Tear This Statehouse Down”), he never loses sight of the fact that music gets its message across best when its audience is having fun.

Best New Venue- Cannery Hall
Damn, is it nice to have The Cannery back. After a couple of years of dormancy, a victim of Nashville's skyrocketing rents, a new ownership group turned the former Cannery Ballroom/Mercy Lounge/Hi-Watt into a new event space that introduces the best technological improvements to a storied Nashville venue. Just being inside the walls of the place where so many of Nashville's favorites got their start was a nice return to glory. While I only got to see the Cannery Mainstage (for McCrary Sisters, Jon Muq, and Amythyst Kiah), I came away impressed enough to start looking for shows at the venue's two other stages to attend, just to soak in the history.

There it is. The favorite things we saw at AMERICANAFEST 2024. If you attended, leave us your favorites in the comments!