TIN PAN SOUTH 

Chase Rice, Jordan Walker, Matt Rogers, & Trannie Anderson

Thursday March 30, 2023 (6PM Show)

@ 3rd & Lindsley in Nashville, TN

(Review by: Jeffrey Kurtis)

With a line stretching across the entire parking lot of Nashville hotspot 3^rd & Lindsley well before the doors officially opened for the Sony Music Publishing sponsored night, everyone was already quickly becoming friends and began talking songwriting, who they were excited to see during Tin Pan South, and who they had already seen that blew them away.

Once inside the venue, the electric atmosphere was full of life with everyone smiling, conversing, and making new friends as they continued to uphold the small-town idea that a stranger was just simply someone you hadn’t met yet.

The camaraderie among the songwriters, Jordan Walker, Matt Rogers, Trannie Anderson, and Chase Rice, was mostly kept lighthearted which completed transcended across the exuberant crowd to hold them in on every inside joke, story told, and song played.

Jordan Walker immediately had phones popping as he started the night with Jordan Davis’ most recent single, “Part of It,” beginning the barrage of hit song after hit song that would follow throughout the entire round.

Walker, who grew up in Texas and shared that Cody Johnson had been a longtime favorite of his, took us straight into the writing room with him the day they wrote “Take It Like A Man,” a song which Johnson recently recorded that wrapped an up-tempo drive into what could otherwise be classified as a heartbreak song, but one that cleverly shifted away from the typical pity party aura of songs like this to embrace the cowboy up way of brushing it off and sucking it up while moving on.

“When It Rains It Pours” was a natural crowd favorite that had everyone singing along with what Walker gratefully exclaimed, “is the song that changed my life,” while his closer “She Drives Me to Drink” delighted the crowd with its fun, clap along moments and catchy bounce as he injected the irresistible hook, “She drives me to drink, then she drives me home.”

However, Walker’s spotlight shining moment arrived midway through his set with “Backseat Driver,” during which he tenderheartedly painted the perfect picture of what it’s like to be driving with a little one in the backseat, honing in on their worry free way of looking out the window and seeing so much simplicity in the world around them and asking questions about all of it, while masterfully twisting the lyrics to showcase how those questions inspire the parent to try and embrace a childlike wonder themselves.

Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter Matt Rogers satisfied a request from his publisher with Brett Eldredge’s “The Long Way,” had everyone bopping with the groove of the Jimmie Allen/Brad Paisley duet “Freedom Was A Highway,” which he perfectly mashed up with Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long,” and introduced a piece of things to come with “Drink About Me,” a song which Canadian country artist Brett Kissel took to #1 a few years back, but that’s also recently been recut by Curb Recording artist Kelsey Hart and is set to be released in a few months.

Showcasing his sense of humor before playing Cody Johnson’s “Treasure,” he spoke of how people ask him all the time if he’s ever inspired to write about his kids, mentioning that after all the late nights and diaper changes that he’s started working on a new song that simply resulted in him shouting, “Go To Bed,” hilariously relenting that it was still a work in progress.

Rogers’ breathtaking moment came through a deafening silence that hushed over the crowd as he made brief mention of the tragedy that happened earlier in the week in Nashville, continuing, “But it’s without fail that someone will always come up to me to tell me how they’ve used this song at graduations, funerals, and even weddings. I hope that it can give all of us some type of comfort now, too,” he somberly shared as the entire venue radiated like a hymn filled chapel as everyone, including the other writers on stage, sang along with “Til You Can’t.”

“I have to hold it down as the lone woman,” exclaimed Waco, TX native Trannie Anderson to a huge applause from the females in the crowd before jumping into Lainey Wilson’s “Road Runner,” punching her built in rasp into the tone so similarly to that of Lainey’s, that if you had closed your eyes then you would nearly believe that the country superstar was on stage performing it herself.

She softened the pace with Tenille Arts’ open warning letter to her ex’s new girlfriend on “Girl To Girl,” teamed up with Jordan Walker on the Chayce Beckham/Lindsay Ell duet “Can’t Do Without Me,” and offered a glimpse into the future when she played “You’re Just Missing Someone,” which Dan + Shay recently cut and will be releasing later this year.

“Unlike these other guys on stage, I didn’t have a massive hit,” Anderson said with a pause, as she strode into her spotlight moment with excitement in her voice as she continued,” Until this week! I’m hearing that this song is going to be #1 at radio this Sunday,” she shared as the entire crowd sang along with her on “Heart Like A Truck.”

With a pure focus on his newest album, I Hate Cowboys and All Dogs Go To Hell, Chase Rice openly shared how even after being here in Nashville for 10 years, it really took this album to show him what he was going for rather than just chasing after a hit.

Injecting grit into each lyric and tilting his vocal twang into specific phrasing to add proper punches, he sang us through “Key West and Colorado” to open his part of the round.

Where “I Hate Cowboys” offered a softer paced, tear in my beer type of song that’s not really about cowboys at all, but rather about the heartbreak he’s dealing with from losing his girl to one, “If I Were Rock and Roll” had heads bopping along with the rhythm as mentions of Earnhardt’s #3 and the SEC elicited cheers from the energetic crowd.

And while his incredibly written final song of the night, “Church,” praised Eric Church while showing the impact that music can make on someone, it was when he played “Bench Seat” that the spotlight shined brightest on him.

The song in and of itself is a true masterpiece on its own, but as Rice transparently told the story of the near suicide of his friend that inspired it, who he also made sure to share is doing much better now and recently got engaged, his teary-eyed, choked up quiver gave the song that much more depth and pulled on the heartstrings of the crowd as they sat up a little straighter to intently soak in each and every word.

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