Value city night stands9/28/2023 ![]() There was a Nashville that many people didn’t realize existed, and it could fill the biggest venue in town. It was a small compromise, Russell told me, since their goal was broader and deeper than party politics: they needed their listeners to know that they weren’t alone in dangerous times. In the end, they had softened their promotional language, releasing a poster that said simply, in lavender letters, “ a celebration of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”-no “drag,” no “trans,” no mention of policy. The organizers had even booked Nashville’s largest venue, the Bridgestone-only to have its board, spooked by the risk of breaking the law, nearly cancel the agreement. Stars had texted famous friends producers had worked for free. residents-including a law, recently signed by the state’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, barring drag acts anywhere that kids could see them. In just three weeks, she and a group of like-minded country progressives had pulled together “Love Rising,” a benefit concert meant to show resistance to Tennessee’s legislation targeting L.G.B.T.Q. The singer-songwriter Allison Russell watched them, smiling. The two began singing in harmony, rehearsing a twangy, raucous cover of Deana Carter’s playful 1995 feminist anthem “ Did I Shave My Legs for This?”-a twist on a Nashville classic, remade for the moment. A drag queen in a ketchup-red wig and gold lamé boots bounded onstage. On March 20th, at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, a block from the honky-tonks of Lower Broadway, Hayley Williams, the lead singer of the pop-punk band Paramore, strummed a country-music rhythm on her guitar.
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