nashville nightlife
23 Aug 2005Mr Roboto’s post about the Demonbreun bar scene got me thinking.
I have this theory brewing, see, about Nashville’s nightlife (or it’s relative lack thereof).
The simple explanation might be that Nashville is just too small, conservative, podunk or [insert adjective here] to have a decent night life. I think there’s more going on.
I think there’s like some sort of vicious feedback loop going on. Every couple of years, Nashville gets a New Fancy Chic Bar or Restaurant that becomes the One Place to go in Nashville. It goes through a life cycle similar to that which Roboto laid out, where it is swarmed as the new place to be seen, and then it gets a reputation for being too crowded, overpriced, or even dangerous. Then everyone stops going there and it goes out of business.
The nightlifers in Nashville are like a large crowd of locusts, moving from bar to bar, utterly ravaging it like a pregnant corn field and leaving the barren stalks to rot in the sun.
I think we could break this cycle if someone would start like, say, 4 or 5 Really Cool Bars/Restaurants all at once. The herd would be so confused, they wouldn’t know where to swarm next (I realize I am mixing animal group metaphors here. Work with me) and the feedback loop would be broken.
The life cycle of a “hot, trendy, cool” club is always the same. It starts out as a secret among the true trend-setters, and it slowly filters down to the wannabes, to the frat dudes, and, ultimately, to the rednecky thug-types. It’s inevitable as the seasons’ changing.