An event that is one part jam session, one part protest will celebrate on Monday something Nashville residents are very familiar with: the power of music.
Inside the vibey, retro halls of East Nashville’s Eastside Bowl, the “Which Side? Protest Music Teach Out” will gather musicians, activists, educators and music lovers for a night of decades-spanning music and community empowerment.
“I feel the tension between feeling overwhelmed by lack of empathy in a lot of policy we're seeing, and our community,” said Greg O’Loughlin of Nashville, an organizer. “It’s going to take neighbors talking to neighbors and connecting and providing support for one another in all sorts of ways. That's going to take some really human-scaled change and connection.”
The concert series began in Boston in 2025 and is inspired by author and educator James Sullivan’s 2019 book, "Which Side Are You On? 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs."
After more than a dozen shows sold out in Boston, Sullivan and his friend Joyce Linehan connected with O’Loughlin and Jamie Rubin, co-owner of Eastside Bowl, to bring the series to Nashville.
“The show is like a variety show, with a very specific aim: to bring people together in a room, raise some spirits and get people to understand the whole point of bringing music into demonstrations and protest movements,” said Sullivan. “People need to hear collective voices together to feel empowered.”
Shows feature local artists who sing both ages-old protest songs and their own contemporary works to start a generation-spanning conversation.
O’Loughlin, who moved to Nashville 24 years ago, worked for a number of years with famed folk singer and activist Pete Seeger on Seeger’s Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, a ship owned by Seeger that functioned as a nonprofit educational voyage and music festival.
“I was lucky to crew that with my dad for a little while,” O’Loughlin said. “So I have this very deep and very lucky connection to the power of singing songs together, and the impact that protest music can have."
(The 1931 song “Which Side Are You On?” written by Florence Reece, and popularized by Seeger, asks the listener to choose their side — the union or the boss. The event will not ask audience members to choose anything besides a seat.)
Monday’s event will also support one local activist, according to O’Loughlin: a woman in North Nashville known as “Miss Pearl,” who has purchased a number of lots to turn them into community gardens to feed her community.
Tennessee has a long history of honoring protest music. Freedom Sings, a national traveling musical show that takes listeners through the rich history of protest music, was founded in 1999 by Ken Paulson, who currently serves as the director of the Free Speech Center in Murfreesboro.
In April, the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes understanding of the First Amendment,hosted the Freely Fest in Nashville, which brought together major artists like T-Pain, The Killers, Dominic Fike and others.
“Playing these songs, whether you entirely agree with them or not, is an exercise of your right to free speech as an American,” said Sullivan. “It’s not about politics. We all need to exercise our voice about anything we feel strongly about, or it will be taken away.”
Event details
The concert will be held at 7 p.m. Sept. 14 at Eastside Bowl’s The ‘58, 1508A Gallatin Pike S. inMadison.
Tickets range from $12.89 for students to $82.47 for a reserved table for four.See eventim.us/event/tickets/701513 for details.
Angele Latham’s role covering First Amendment issues at The Tennessean is made possible by a collaboration among Freedom Forum, Journalism Funding Partners and the USA TODAY Network. Freedom Forum does not provide editorial input. Reach Angele Latham at alatham@gannett.com, on X at @angele_latham and on TikTok at @angelelatham.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: 'Neighbors talking to neighbors.' Concert event seeks to build community
