Brad Paisley wants to give Nashville 'a night we all deserve' with free 4th of July concert

The last time Brad Paisley headlined a concert in Nashville, he traded rowdy applause for flashing headlights and honking horns. 

Last July, Paisley welcomed carloads of country music fans to the Nissan Stadium parking lot for a drive-in concert performance — a short-lived attempt by artists and promoters to keep a flame burning for live music as COVID-19 relentlessly tried to blow it out. 

This weekend in downtown Nashville, Paisley gets a first-hand look at the difference a year can make. 

"There's a collective experience that happens when you are able to be physically close to other people and experience a musical performance," Paisley said, adding: "To take that away for a while, you forget the power of a group of people to influence a show from out there in the audience." 

Paisley headlines "Let Freedom Sing!" a 4th of July celebration on Lower Broadway that signals the largest "return to normal" gathering for Music City since COVID-19 derailed annual celebrations and crippled tourism for the bustling honky-tonk hub. 

Audiences can catch Paisley's free performance Sunday night on an outdoor stage at the intersection of 1st Avenue and Broadway. Nashville singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt plays main support, with country newcomer Priscilla Block and genre-fusing Regi Wooten and Friends rounding out the lineup. 

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Following Paisley, the evening concludes with a Nashville Symphony performance at Ascend Amphitheater accompanied by a half-hour fireworks display billed by American Pyrotechnics Association as largest in the U.S. this weekend. 

"I get a feeling the 4th of July is going to be ... rewarding," Paisley said. "Especially it being rewarding to play the 4th of July in Nashville with the largest fireworks display in America in any year, but to do it after everybody said, 'OK ... we're taking this away. Hope you appreciate it.' 

"It's going to be something else." 

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'Bells and whistles' 

Paisley kicks off his 2021 summer and fall tour with the upcoming Nashville performance, a night he promises to "pull out all the stops" on Lower Broadway. He wants to celebrate the momentum regained by live music since he stepped on to an empty Grand Ole Opry stage to perform for living room audiences last March. 

But don't expect his show to ignore the past year-and-a-half, Paisley said. To pretend the pandemic never happened in Nashville "would feel wrong." 

"To go up and blindly perform without a tip of the hat to Charley Pride and Joe Diffie, John Prine —  everything that happened and the empty street of Broadway," Paisley said. "There's a lot of, 'let's count our blessings here, folks,' but with a beer in hand." 

He continued, "It's going to feel both patriotic and a true Independence Day from this [pandemic]." 

Paisley marks the biggest headliner in Let Freedom Sing! history, said Deana Ivey, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. 

Prior to COVID-19, the event drew roughly 200,000 to downtown Nashville annually, with the convention and visitors bureau reporting an estimated 343,000 attendees for a record year in 2019. 

"It's gonna be such a boost to the city, to the locals, to the businesses," Ivey said. "Fourth of July is always a great celebration in Nashville. It's a combination of inviting visitors to come and enjoy the music and enjoy the fireworks. But it's also a way to give back to the community. Not many places you can live that you have this kind of free live event."  

A beer-ready reunion

For the 4th of July last year, Paisley set off a few fireworks with in-laws on his Tennessee farm. This year, he'll play a new single — "City of Music" — that pays tribute to the musical "pilgrims" who often journey to Nashville with wide-eyed dreams. 

With lyrics: "Leave something that'll ring out after/

In the rafters of the Mother Church," the song comes tailor-made for an overdue street full of Nashville onlookers. 

"There's a pent-up angst to this song that wouldn't of been there a year ago," Paisley said. "It's that amazing thing of: We're gonna make you really appreciate the chance to play music together.

"As well as the hopeful nature of [lyrics]: 'Sing it for the ghosts that played before you/ Play until your fingers hurt," he added. "It's like, yeah, we're really gonna do that. Because we understand how much that matters now." 

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And Paisley said to expect at least one pandemic-born reunion at the show.

Last year, in the height of civil unrest after the death of George Floyd, a pair New York friends — Benjamin Smith and Marcus Ellis, a white man and a Black man — went viral after asking friends to "relax" and drink a beer together. Paisley caught wind of the lighthearted solidarity and delivered a shipment of free beer to the friends. 

Now, they'll reunite in person when Paisley brings the friends on stage Sunday night — and they likely won't be alone in raising a drink or two. 

"If the bars on the street have not run out of beer by the end of it, we've failed," Paisley said, adding a laugh. "But I'd be willing to bet they run out." 

And a beer-ready reunion may be just one moment in a night that could show how much difference a year can make. He'll still be playing outdoors in Nashville, but this time when a song ends, it won't be car horns greeting Paisley. 

"We tried our best to make something that is going to get us back to the mindset of 'life is good' but also not turn a blind eye," Paisley said. "It'll be really, really fun to just watch what happens to people's faces when we play. That's what I'm lookin forward to. 

"We've built this specifically for Nashville," he said. " This one, right here, I feel I'm obligated to my town. To give us a night we all deserve."