Grind City Music Festival brings top up-and-comers in roots, rock and Americana to Memphis

A dozen of the top up-and-coming roots, rock and Americana acts will be in Memphis this week to perform as part of the Grind City Music Festival, on the grounds of Grind City Brewing Co. Opened in fall 2020, the brewery — owned by Bill and Hopper Seely — has become one of linchpins in the ongoing redevelopment of Memphis’ Uptown area.

Sitting on 4.6 acres of land at 76 Waterworks Ave., Grind City features a 10,000-square-foot brewery and taproom, a beer garden and stage for outdoor concerts, along with a sweeping view of Downtown Memphis.

“It offers a compelling reason for people to come to a part of Memphis they may have overlooked,” Grind City Music Festival promoter Nick Barbian said. “It’s cool how often people drive through there and are amazed at how completely it’s being changed.”

The second Grind City Music Festival will provide that opportunity for Memphians on Friday and Saturday, with headlining performances by Charley Crockett and Whiskey Myers. In addition to the music, the event will feature a local artists' market, food vendors and other activities.

The festival, which has a 5,000 capacity per day, may very well reach that number of attendees in 2024. “I think we’ll get pretty close on Saturday,” Barbian said. “We don’t have to sell it out to consider it a success. We’re already in a position where we are looking to planning for 2025.”

A Wisconsin native, promoter Barbian worked in Austin before coming to Memphis in 2019. He was brought into town by national concert powerhouse Live Nation, but then “the pandemic happened and I just relaunched my own promotion company,” he said.

Now partnered with Midwest booking company Mammoth Live, Barbian has been booking shows at venues throughout the area, including BankPlus Amphitheater, Minglewood Hall and FedExForum. “What we’re doing is Memphis-centric, and focused on developing the music scene here on all levels,” he said. “And that includes the Grind City Festival.”

The first Grind City Music Festival took place in August 2022, headlined by the Greensky Bluegrass band. “That was like a prototype, a trial version of what we hoped to do in the future,” said Barbian. “We threw it together in about two months’ time. And the response exceeded our expectations.”

Plans for a second festival in August 2023 were initially hatched, but Barbian and the Grind City Brewing Co. owners decided the environment would be more hospitable for a spring fest. “We decided it would be a whole lot more fun to build a festival in Memphis outside in April than in the middle of August,” he said.

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As with the inaugural edition, this year’s Grind City Music Festival will focus on acts in the Americana, roots, and rock ‘n’ roll genres. “Really, we’re trying to bring in acts that are on the way up,” Barbian said. “I think we did really well with someone like The Red Clay Strays this year. When we booked them they were a buzz band, and now they are the buzz band, and maybe one of the hottest things in the space at the moment.”

“Charley Crockett is another brilliant guy pulling from so many musical influences. Or Daniel Donato with his Cosmic Country sound. I think we nailed it when it comes to the programming in terms of it being a different kind of festival than what Memphis may already have.”

Barbian adds that in a city with multiple music fests, including the upcoming RiverBeat at Tom Lee Park, Grind City is “just trying to find our little niche. And we’re all about sustainable growth. Every year we want to get a little bit bigger and better.”

In addition to the festival, Grind City has announced an August concert by prog-rockers Primus. And Barbian hints that more events will be announced for the venue soon.

“We’re still very early in the story of what we hope to accomplish out there,” he said. “We want to do consistent events, we want to do some infrastructure improvements. I know from the brewery standpoint there’s other things they want to do on the event side than just music. We’re just laying the groundwork and hope to continue to grow.”

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Grind City Music Festival

When: Friday-Saturday, April 5-6

Where: Grind City Brewing Co., 76 Waterworks Ave.

Tickets: General admission tickets for the Grind City Music Festival are $69 per day. A two-day pass costs $109. VIP passes and packages have sold out.

Details: Go to Grindcityfest.com

Grind City Music Festival schedule

Friday, April 5

Doors open at 2 p.m.

3 p.m. Young Mister

4 p.m. Drayton Farley

5 p.m. Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country

6:15 p.m.  Sam Barber

7:30 p.m. Muscadine Bloodline

9 p.m. Charley Crockett

Saturday, April 6

Doors open at 1 p.m.

2 p.m. Raneem Imam

2:30 p.m. Lucky 7 Brass Band and Friends

3:50 p.m. Blackillac

5 p.m. Ole 60

6:15 p.m. Nikki Lane

7:30 p.m. The Red Clay Strays

9 p.m. Whiskey Myers

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Charley Crockett, Whiskey Myers to headline Grind City Music Festival