Large Local Fan Turnout At Recent New Album Signing For Cage The Elephant's "Social Cues" At Mellow Matt's Records & More In Bowling Green, Ky.

   

   Cage The Elephant and I go way back in Bowling Green during their early days before their second album release in 2011, "Thank You, Happy Birthday.'

Cage The Elephant

    Since CTE is from Bowling Green and my son, Tony Smith, who is also a Bowling Green musician, songwriter and producer and who now lives in East Nashville,  he became friends with CTE band brothers, Matt and Brad Shultz, earlier in their early days of the band's beginnings and eventually "Sleeper Agent," was formed (Tony's former band) and the rest is history. And that's another story to tell in of itself one day. However, the first time I saw CTE perform was at the second annual "Starry Nights Music Festival" in Bowling Green (which is now defunct) in the October of 2010. I was blown away by the band. (see video below) In the meantime, here's a little info about that time period during CTE's history with Sleeper Agent and the Bowling Green Music Scene on their Wikipedia page. I like to call it the "Heyday of the Bowling Green Music Scene":

Sleeper Agent

   'The group's audience expanded widely throughout 2011. Although they were formed in the 2000s, the band earned the top spot in Rolling Stone's "Reader's Poll: The Best New Artist of 2011". The band Sleeper Agent, another Bowling Green music group and close friends with Cage the Elephant, came in second place. The magazine also named Thank You, Happy Birthday as the 15th best album of the year. That year, Cage the Elephant and Manchester Orchestra embarked on a co-headlining tour with Sleeper Agent as the opening band. In January 2012, the band released the album Live from The Vic in Chicago, recorded during their 2011 tour, and also toured with the Big Day Out music festival."

   Even though that is a long and interesting story especially on Sleeper Agent's part as far as I'm concerned, I will stay focused in this particular blog segment on CTE's recent new album signing for "Social Cues" at Mellow Matt's Records and More on Smallhouse Road in Bowling Green which was a grand experience for CTE local fans and the Bowling Green Music Scene from all appearances while I videotaped the event from the outside of the building and in the parking lot as well as the grass.

CTE's New Album, "Social Cues"

    Mellow Matt's is a small record store with not much space in a strip shopping mall. However, Matt and his staff somehow manage large crowd turnouts in order for fans to get autographs on records and CD's from famous bands such as CTE. It's also where Sleeper Agent had their second release album party in 2014 for "About Last Night." The crowd for Sleeper Agent was not quite as large as CTE's but they nonetheless they had a good turnout and that was Matt's number one album selling album for the year he had claimed. Actually, this was CTE''s was second new album signing at Mellow Matt's. The first one was a couple of years ago at the store for their fourth album, "Tell I'm Pretty," in which they won a Grammy for "Best Rock Album in 2015. I was not able to make it to that signing. But since I have a new HD DVC camera that my son, Tony, gave to my birthday, I decided to try it out in the parking lot at the CTE signing at Mellow Matt's. There are three little short video clips that I posted below from my Youtube Channel. They are not perfect by no means but I do believe I was able to capture a little of the magic, spirit and excitement among CTE's many local fans that were lined up waiting to get inside. And hopefully, I'll get better with the camera as time goes on. (Note: I did receive Mellow Matt's permission on the phone prior the signing in order to make these video clips). I also included one of CTE performing the song "Tiny Robots" at the Starry Nights Music Festival in 2010. Thank you and I hope you enjoy the videos!