Empires - The Basement

Gotta love The Basement for bringing out some of the best music to grace the streets of Nashville. Friday night's performance from Chicago's Empires was one of those times that make you want to send Christmas cards to the management. Both loud and raucous, they managed to achieve the coveted hipster "headbob of approval". From the energy on stage, I almost expected a mosh pit to break out. "Bang" is the appropriate title for their album, because from the first note, the place lit up and there was not a dull moment until the hike off stage and the audience request for "4 more!". Yes, in a nutshell, they kicked ass and unless you find ass-kicking distasteful, you should visit their website and find out why I was so darn impressed: weareempires.com