April 24, 2026

In April we traveled to Nashville to see The Maine in concert and let me tell you, it was an adventure! We left Omaha in the early afternoon and our flight was set to land in Nashville several hours before the concert giving us time to get to our hotel, change, and get to the venue with plenty of time to spare. After a quick flight, we landed ahead of schedule which looked promising. Then, on the way to our gate the plane in front of us got stuck leaving us stranded for ALMOST TWO HOURS! With this bad luck, we finally made it to the venue with three songs of Nightly’s opening set to spare. Although this was incredibly disappointing given the fact that we love Nightly and Grayscale, we were lucky to at least make it for The Maine’s entire set!

The venue, Marathon Music Works, is located 20 minutes from Broadway. The venue holds approximately 1,500 people and felt pretty spacious given the amount of people in attendance at this show. The acoustics sounded better than similar venues, like the Truman in Kansas City. The only downside was that despite several large industrial fans, the venue was incredibly hot.

The three songs that we heard from Nightly—MESS, 1989 and hate my favorite band—all sounded fantastic live. After the show, I had the pleasure if meeting the band. I love when openers take the time to meet all of their fans and engage with them. They had quite a long line of people waiting to meet them, which was fantastic. When it was my turn, they took time to say hi, compliment my outfit, and take a photo. They seemed genuinely interested in meeting their fans and took time with each to make the meeting special. I look forward to seeing how this band grows!

After seeing Nightly’s last three songs, we sang and danced along all night to The Maine’s setlist. The Maine brings an intensity and energy to their performance that is contagious. I couldn’t stop smiling the entire setlist. The setlist was a great balance of old songs and new songs spanning across most, if not all, of their albums. My only two complaints about their setlist were: 1) they didn’t play one of my favorite songs, English Girls; and 2) they only played one song from their album “You Are OK” which is a tragedy. Other than that, I sang along to every single song. This show was extra special as The Maine was recording the show. This raised energy levels significantly and allowed them to bring in a special guest—Charlotte Sands—to perform their song Loved You A Little. Charlotte Sands absolutely stole the show during this song, giving me goosebumps during her solo portions. A full recording of this guest appearance can be found on my Tik Tok—@alt.archived.

After the show, I purchased my favorite concert t-shirt of the year so far, a snake t-shirt with The Maine’s concert tour dates. I wanted to purchase several more of their shirts but had to exercise some self control with all the concerts on the docket for this year. Then, after meeting Nightly and purchasing my new t-shirt, my favorite moment of the entire night happened. Prior to the concert, I spent hours custom making pieces of my outfit. Specifically, I make a vest out of thrifted jeans on which I wrote all the lyrics to my favorite song, Sticky. On the way out of the venue, my husband pointed out that the lead singer of The Maine—John O’Callaghan—was signing merch by the stage. I quickly ran over to him and asked if he would sign my custom vest and lucky for me he did! This is now one of my most prized concert-related possessions! I posted several pictures of the signed vest below, I hope you like it!

OVERALL RATINGS

Setlist: 10/10

Merch: 10/10

Set Design: 8/10

Venue: 8/10

Vibes: 10/10