The hit show, Nashville have taken to the skies and for a final time they’ll showcase their talent and music to us in the UK and Ireland as they embark on the final spin off tour. Esten,
Bowen, Carmack, Jackson, and Palladio will host eight shows in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland for their Farewell UK Tour. The Belfast gig is booked into the SSE arena for Tuesday 24th April.
Nashville not only changed the lives of everyone who has ever worked on the show, but it also helped change the city itself. And it will forever be part of its musical legacy.
The series continues to play a major part in why the city is the boom town it has become (The population expansion is starting to cool after 2017 Census data showed that 100 people were moving to Nashville a day.).
Since the show’s launch in 2012, it not employed several workers in the local entertainment industry, it served as a platform for many emerging artists like a rising Kacey Musgraves. Before Same Trailer, Different Park debuted in 2013, Hayden Panettiere’s Juliette Barnes was recording Musgraves’ original co-write “Undermine” with Charles Esten’s Deacon Claybourne in the studio.
Before Nashville premiered, there was always a line to get in to see a show at the Bluebird Café. But six seasons into the drama, it’s almost impossible to get a seat for any show at the musically sacred place. The Green Hills neighborhood where it’s located barely resembles what it was before the show began.
Nashville also changed the lives of its talented actors. Esten announced in December he has decided to make the city his forever home as he continues to focus on his music career. Chris Carmack’s (Will Lexington) Nashville life led him meeting his wife, instrumentalist Erin Slayer, and their daughter turns two in August. Clare Bowen married singer-songwriter Brandon Robert Young in Nashville in October. And if the show never happened, Cassadee Pope and Sam Palladio (Gunnar Scott) probably wouldn’t be a new couple.
On paper the show has been a huge hit also. Since its debut, the show has also inspired a series of world tours and 22 soundtracks, including a Christmas album, which have collectively sold more than one million album units and over 5 million single-track downloads to date. It has also been nominated for multiple Emmy®, Golden Globe® and Critics Choice awards.
Last summer, almost everyone from Nashville went to London, and they came home with a 29-track DVD. Their show at the legendary Royal Albert Hall was filmed to bring the songs from the TV show to life, and its late April release will let the music of Nashville live on long past the series finale at the end of July.
The cast included in the London show include Charles Esten (Deacon), Clare Bowen (Scarlett), Sam Palladio (Gunnar), Jonathan Jackson (Avery), and Chris Carmack (Will) doing the songs that their characters performed on the show, a few of the fan-favorite collaborations, and some personal favorites. The DVD also includes bonus featurettes like “Nashville In London” and “The Songs of Nashville in Concert.”
On Monday (April 9), the Nashville cast members filmed their final scenes of the series ever. Before the shoot, several of them reunited with co-creators Callie Khouri and Steve Buchanan in Nashville on Saturday (April 7) for a wrap party to celebrate the show’s enduring legacy and its impact on the city.
At a 2016 screenwriters conference, Khouri, who is also longtime local, said her love of the city and the talented people who call it home was what inspired her to be part of the series in the first place.
“The thing that always blew me away,” she said, “is that you could go to a restaurant one night, and the bus boy would come take your plates off the table and be this invisible person. And the next night you would see him onstage with a guitar, and he would kill you with a song. Everywhere you looked was somebody who was so talented that just has never stopped.”
She’s right about those in the Nashville service industry. Many country icons like Rodney Crowell and Randy Travis got their starts in town working at local restaurants. Kris Kristofferson worked as a janitor at Columbia Records at the time Bob Dylan was recording Blonde on Blonde there.
In the USA Nashville’s mid-season premiere is set for June 7. The series-ending finale is July 26.
Final Irish Concerts! Stars of hit TV series @Nashville_ABC come to @3arenadublin and @SSEBelfastArena 23 and 24 April. On sale now from @TicketmasterIre https://t.co/d6yrqF0C21 pic.twitter.com/fszpn8ceLA
— Cunningham PR (@cunninghamprirl) April 12, 2018