Fresh Lemons : Nothing Canned

The Lemonheads Kick Off Their Tour at The Cannery in Nashville

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I was honored and humbled to be covering the opening night for the new The Lemonheads tour at The Cannery in Nashville.  The stage was set at this intimate venue for a magical night which was to include the band playing their two classic albums, It’s A Shame About Ray and Come On Feel The Lemonheads in their entirety.  I had never been to The Cannery before, so being at a brand-new music spot is always special. 

However, there is nothing new about The Cannery and it’s history. Built as a flour mill by Liberty Mills in 1883, the building was one of two grain mills in Middle Tennessee. A publication by the Nashville Chamber of Commerce dated 1900 boasted that the city ground more wheat than any city in the United States at that time. William Litterer, the mayor of Nashville from 1881 to 1883, became its first president. The flour was loaded onto railroad cars behind the building and hauled to the river for transport to the nation’s population centers. Cannery Hall is in the historic Cannery Row District, which has been a staple of Nashville’s music scene for over 40 years. 

The building itself and the surrounding spaces breathe history. The stone and brickwork scream Americana and the foundation that was laid for this industrial time in our country.  I learned that in the 1930s, the building was home to the Fletcher Coffee Company who milled their coffee here. After that, Dale Foods Company began processing their jams, jellies, mustards, and peanut butter there from the 1950’s until the mid-1970s. In 1981, The Cannery began its inception as a concert type venue when the Dale family remolded the building into an 18,000 square foot country style restaurant with a stage. Thank you Dale family.   

The building currently has three different venue spots located inside for various audiences.  I was at The Mil which is said to accommodate 625 people. It’s just as beautiful inside with a long bar set to the right that hosts great local craft beers and an incredibly fun and gracious staff.  Everything is clean and polished, yet it’s tucked inside the belly of this room that once crushed flour, and coffee and must have been dusty and cloudy for generations.  I love that fact that the new and the old can coexist.   

John Strohm opened the night. John is a soft-spoken man whom I had the pleasure of conversing with post-show.  He is a self-announced “family man now”, but “a Nashville kid”.  He lives in the city, working as a lawyer and so it was only natural that he opened the show, that and he was once (really still is) a Lemonhead. He played drums for the band from 1987-1989 and then returned to play guitar sporadically, including on the LP Come On Feel The Lemonheads. You might also know him from Blake Babies with Juliana Hatfield and Freda Love. 

He may be quietly unassuming off stage, but under the lights he is transformed into a magnificent guitar player, singer and songwriter.  He opens the show alone saying, “there will be a band in a minute”.  Then he sets us off with what we all need, the music.  He is driven with passion throughout his performance.  His melodies are searing guitar riffs and his voice is riddle with both pain and love. 

The band has come on to join John and they offer to play a tribute to their late friend, Ed Ackerson.  “Ed had a band called Polara”, John stated as he slightly chokes up.  “How many people have heard of Polara?” [a couple up front raise their hands] “Two People, okay”.  He then tells us about his dear buddy and how he died from cancer a few years back from cancer.  A speckling of “Fuck Cancer” pops off from various attendees. “Yeah”, John adds “Fuck pancreatic cancer.”  They then go into that Polara song called “a+b=y”.  I’m going to leave a link here to the tune. It’s astounding. John isn’t finished just yet either, he then joins his old band to play some iconic music. 

The Lemonheads are an indie/alternative/punk band, originally from Boston, Massachusetts formed in 1986, and they were playing their two most successful albums tonight. The setlist was It’s A Shame About Ray which was constantly in my cars cassette player my senior year of high school (1992), and Come On Feel The Lemonheads (1996) which featured the single “Into Your Arms”.  

Being that we were the first stop of the tour I wondered if they would just hammer through it.  They could quite possibly play song after song with little else to offer.  This was not at all the case.  There was pure joy on the face of frontman Evan Dando’s face as he launched out from behind the curtain and picked up his guitar to play the first number.  The band has been around for nearly 40 years, but they were not tired or ready to lay down in any fashion.  They had come to rock. 

I’ll save you the trouble of scrolling down from here look to see if they played the Simon & Garfunkel cover of “Mrs. Robinson”.  They did not, and that was totally okay.  Technically it was a bonus track from It’s A Shame so I’m alright with them skipping it.  I wonder how tired they might be of getting that request over the years.  However, they did lay down a great cover of “The Killing Moon” by Echo & The Bunnymen. 

They are on a 24-date tour throughout the United States and maybe it will become something different at the end of the journey, but I am glad we got to see it in its infancy.  They sounded really good and if nothing changes fans will love what they are getting.  Evan is just coming off a solo stretch, but like I said before, he doesn’t seem worn down.   

I am pretty sure that they check all the boxes from both albums, but I wasn’t really keeping track. I was in the moment with the music, which is always a great place to be.  When you kind of lose track until that song ends.  The Lemonheads made me feel that way at The Cannery.  Also, let’s talk sound quality for a second.  The Cannery has a fantastic resonance, and the engineer(s) did an outstanding job controlling the levels. 

My conclusion is that The Lemonheads were damn good.  I hope that they will keep up that infectious energy for the duration of the tour.  What I witnessed was a band that still has desire sprinkled with that nostalgia that people my age crave. If they are coming to a city near you be sure to check them out.  Hopefully your venue will be as good as The Cannery.