Concert Review: Emo Night Nashville at Marathon Music Works

Valentine’s Day is usually for candlelight, roses, and pretending you enjoy prix-fixe menus. Instead, hundreds of people gathered to scream about emotional damage together at Marathon Music Works for the 10-year anniversary of Emo Night Nashville, brought together by Nashville Is The Reason. Romance, but make it eyeliner.

Before the night could even stretch, it ran. Peyton Marie opened the entire evening swinging straight for the emotional fences with "Misery Business" by Paramore. Not eased in. Not warmed up. Just full send. Arena-level confidence from the first note, immediately turning the room into a choir that remembered every lyric like sacred scripture.

Starting the night with that song was the cardio equivalent of sprinting out of the gate and daring the rest of the evening to keep up. 

The night moved with the pace of a group chat meltdown. Song by song, performers rotated in and out like emotional tag teams. No egos, no speeches, just a conveyor belt of nostalgia-driven catharsis. Blink and you could've missed three singers and at least one collective existential crisis.

Between live sets, the night periodically pivoted into 15-minute DJ bursts, and not the “my friend has Spotify” kind either. The guest DJ rotation started early with Maty Madiro of From Ashes to New taking the decks and setting the momentum firmly into overdrive.

Later, you could look up and realize Travie McCoy from Gym Class Heroes was DJing your feelings. Then he decided the stage wasn't immersive enough and climbed the rail mid-set to interact with the crowd, blurring the line between performer and audience until it basically stopped existing. Suddenly everyone was part of the show whether they planned on it or not.

Chaos truly clocked in for its shift when Chelsea Wilck of Chelsea Motel took the stage to cover "That's What You Get". Toward the end of the song, a renegade cymbal decided it had heard enough about the consequences of life choices and chose freedom.

It launched itself from the drum kit and began rolling across the stage like it had somewhere better to be.

It cruised right past Chelsea mid-performance as if auditioning for its own solo tour. Live music is best when it escapes, and that cymbal absolutely left to pursue its dreams. Somewhere between “this is incredible” and “someone please catch that cymbal,” the crowd collectively decided the moment was canon.

The duet, yes, I am using the word duet, and nobody can stop me, between Shyeye and Showing Teeth on "King for a Day" was unbelievable. Dress shirts. Ties. Absolute authority. They walked on stage dressed like they were about to present quarterly earnings and instead delivered emotional violence. 

The energy was so high it probably voided the venue’s warranty. Some of my most dynamic photos of the night came from this performance because when two frontwomen decide they are going to own the room, the room signs the paperwork without reading it.

Lee Jennings of The Funeral Portrait stepped in and absolutely buried "Teenagers". Not covered. Not performed. Buried. It was theatrical, explosive, and the kind of moment where the crowd realizes they are witnessing a highlight in real time.

Scene Queen showed up and attacked "Dirty Little Secret". Loud and perfectly unhinged in the best way possible. The room responded accordingly by losing any remaining chill it had been clinging to.

What made the night special was not just the lineup, it was the relay race of it all. No downtime. No filler. Just a revolving door of talent passing the emotional baton from one anthem to the next. A who’s who of local and national performers sharing the same stage, the same songs, and the same collective mission: make sure nobody leaves with dry eyes or a functioning voice.

Every lyric was treated like a legally binding contract. People weren't singing along; they were filing emotional restraining orders. Couples slow-danced to songs about breakups. Friends hugged during songs about betrayal. Someone, somewhere in the building text an ex, several people probably text multiple exes. It was Valentine’s Day after all.

The energy never dipped below aggressively therapeutic; every chorus felt like the room was collectively remembering their Myspace password. By the end of the night, the room felt like it had run a marathon without moving more than a few feet in any direction.

Ten years compressed into one Valentine’s Day celebration that felt equal parts party, reunion, and group therapy session with a professional sound system. If love was in the air that night, it smelled suspiciously like sweat, fog machine haze, and unresolved feelings. And honestly, that felt exactly right.