Top 5* moments from the 2025 Big Ears Festival
Illness cut our 2025 Big Ears Festival experience short. But over the course of the evening of March 28, tremendous talents awaited in downtown Knoxville.
Taj Mahal reigns supreme
Now 82 years old, the blues legend still has the spirit of a much younger man and showcased his diverse gifts throughout a mesmerizing late-night set at the Tennessee Theater. Surrounded by guitars and a banjo, with a keyboard just to his right, Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr. navigated each instrument with veteran aplomb, cracking jokes about the Volunteer State, his age, and his difficulty elevating his various string bodies’ straps over his head.
Accompanied by a phenomenal four-piece backing band, passionate takes on “Fishing Blues,” “Queen Bee,” and “Lovin' in My Baby's Eyes” were all on the menu, as well as a faithful take on Santo & Johnny’s classic instrumental “Sleep Walk,” which Taj introduced as a song anyone who’d participated in “parking and necking” would recognize. Traditional sets like his help keep the festival grounded and provide a welcome counter to the improvised jazz and experimentation on which Big Ears has built its reputation.
Esperanza Spalding (Photo by Fernando Lodeiro)
Esperanza Spalding boogies
Kicking off the evening program at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium, the renowned bassist/vocalist delighted attendees with her diverse skillset and talented collaborators. Those bandmates included her rock-solid drummer and guitarist, but also a pair of nimble dancers who provided welcome visual accompaniment to compositions that, while engaging, definitely benefited from the extra layer of artistry.
Just over the set’s halfway point, Spalding set her instrument down and joined her terpsichoreans for some memorable moves of her own, proving that there’s more to the artist than “just” singing, songwriting, playing multiple instruments, and telling lengthy, semi-esoteric stories between songs.
ANOHNI (Photo courtesy of Pitch Perfect PR)
ANOHNI tells it like it is
Back in town for the first time since playing the inaugural Big Ears in 2009, the spellbinding singer/songwriter and their backing ensemble, The Johnsons, was easily one of the weekend’s most intriguing and rare shows — beyond a potential Portishead reunion (that ultimately didn’t happen, despite all three members playing separate shows) — and more than lived up to their billing.
Encompassing the entirety of the Knoxville Civic Auditorium stage, ANOHNI showcased their distinctly haunting and soulful voice to great effect over layered instrumentation by their tremendous bandmates, including beautiful piano and woodwind components. Between songs, their long, semi-rambling banter about LGBTQ+ rights and the dire state of the Great Barrier Reef proved just as captivating as the carefully curated selection of originals and covers, which included Lou Reed’s “Coney Island Baby” and and encore of The Velvet Underground’s “I’m Set Free.”
(Taj Mahal photo by Eli Johnson)
