Plans are subject to change. Knowing how those changes will work out? Well, that’s another thing entirely. A few weeks before this Saturday, I saw that Grits & Greens were coming to Blue Canoe and checked with my buddy Randy and his lady, Tina. We made plans to meet up, hang out and catch the show. Simple enough, until my usual Tupelo go-to, Backline Music Hall, announced Float Like a Buffalo for the same night.
Now I had a little scheduling problem to resolve… lol. I wasn’t 100 percent sure what to expect from either band, and I wanted to hear both. Float Like a Buffalo’s 7:30 start and Grits & Greens’ 8:30 start gave me a timeline to work with, provided I could talk myself into leaving the first show. By the end of the night, I was wishing somebody had put both bands on the same stage.
As I would find out across town, that idea wasn’t nearly as far-fetched as I thought.
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Let's try Buffalo first
I arrived early at Backline Music Hall, giving myself time to say hello to everyone and see how things had been going. I’ve got an idea I want to run by Meredith, too, though there are still a few things to iron out before that conversation. For now, I had a camera, two shows on the schedule and a roomful of familiar faces to catch up with before the first band started.
Denver’s Float Like a Buffalo brought six musicians and enough instrumental options to keep my eyes moving around the stage. Cory Pearman handled lead vocals and rhythm guitar, with James Steinbach on lead guitar, Jason Clukies on bass and Jon Cales behind the drums. Cory “Beef” Meier moved between keyboards and trombone, while Luke Story supplied saxophone. Two Corys, one band. I had my work cut out for me keeping names straight before we even got to the music.
The group formed in 2014, and its mix of funk, ska, reggae and rock has taken it from Colorado clubs to Red Rocks. Here at Backline, though, the part that interested me was how all those pieces worked together in a room this intimate. Guitars, keys and horns can make for a lot of moving parts. These guys kept theirs tight and locked in.
They came on promptly at 7:30, and Preston had them sounding great. A small cable issue cropped up at the start, but it was resolved quickly while the guys never missed a beat. “FKA” opened the set and established where this was headed. We were going to have a party, and a little trouble with a cable wasn’t going to change those plans.
Pearman kept the vocals strong while Steinbach kept his six strings hot. Underneath them, Clukies and Cales held the groove together, giving the guitars and horns something solid to work against. Meier tickled the ivories, then added trombone when the arrangement called for it, joining Story’s saxophone to fill out the horn sound. Watching him change jobs was part of the fun. The band could shift its instrumental balance without losing the groove that had everybody engaged in the first place.
“Rocketship,” “Get in the Van”, “SOB” and “Day Late, Dollar Short” kept that combination of jams, funk and guitar work coming. I had arrived without knowing quite what I was getting into, and now the problem was that second starting time across town. Every song gave me another reason to stay. It’s a good problem to have on a Saturday night, even if it doesn’t make leaving any easier.
“Don’t Worry,” “Gone By Morning” and “Buy My Book” closed out my time at Backline. They did not close out the band’s night, and I hated to leave with the set still going strong. The crowd had been into it from the beginning. Later, a couple of Hal Teasler’s videos showed me the party carried right on after I left. I think I even saw an alien dancing!
A little love for Backline
Before heading across Tupelo, I need to give some credit to the people who make Backline feel like Backline. Meredith, Hal, Kate, Jason, Preston, Matthew and Brian: thank you for the opportunities to come hang out, hear music, work on my craft and keep learning. The friendships are a big part of why I look forward to walking through those doors.
The room’s intimacy hits you almost immediately. The decor, the super-comfortable seating and the green room all contribute to a place where I’ve grown comfortable spending an evening with artists I might not know much about yet. That was exactly the situation tonight. A band from Colorado could come in, start playing and give me a reason to put its name on my list for the next time around.
Then there are the sandwiches from Bleu Collar Toastie’s. A delicious bonus, and I have yet to hear a bad word about them. Get you one and FOFA about it! I’d have happily settled in for the rest of Float Like a Buffalo’s set, but Randy, Tina and a second band were waiting on the other side of town.
A Southern staple gets loud
After a short trip across Tupelo, I arrived at Blue Canoe for some Mississippi folks who had come up from Hattiesburg. Randy and Tina were already there and had grabbed a great table for the show. I set my gear down and took a moment to check in with Grits & Greens before they got started.
That turned into a fun little discovery. They had played shows with Float Like a Buffalo before and were surprised to hear their former billmates were also performing in Tupelo that night. Here I was trying to connect the two shows with a drive across town, and the bands already had a connection of their own. My wish to hear them on the same stage had some history behind it after all.
I also brought up The Whispering Trees, Cookie Wu and Red Light Vendetta to see who knew whom down south. Connections, it’s all about connections in this worldwide web of music. Sometimes you find them by checking a tour calendar. Sometimes you set your gear down at a bar and start talking. Then it was back to the table to catch up with my friends and hear what Grits & Greens had brought to the Cathead Stage.
Ryann McGhee handled vocals, keyboards and guitar, with Jesse McGhee on lead guitar, Jake Noble on bass and Sam Martinez on drums. The band calls its sound psychedelic “y’allternative,” a description that leaves room for its Southern roots and the different directions the songs take. Tonight, that meant a set that could get loud while also making room for anxiety, bad influences and the pressure people carry around inside their own heads.
For the second time that evening, a band started right on time. At 8:30 sharp, Grits & Greens opened with “Fleas”. No animals had to attend for us to get those. The song’s warning about bad influences and staying in an unhealthy environment gave the opening some bite. You can keep putting yourself in the same situation, but eventually you have to deal with what comes along with it.
“The Fall,” “Slingshot” and “Ain’t It Fun” followed, bringing us to “27,” a favorite of mine from the set. Its attention to mental health, anxiety and the pressure of expectations gave me something to hold onto beyond the playing. Those subjects fit the band’s stated songwriting interests, but hearing them in the middle of a night out with friends gave them a place in the evening rather than leaving them as words in a band biography.
It was good to see people out for both shows. Personally, I would have loved to see both venues packed, but we are in the South, in SEC country at that. There are competing loyalties on a Saturday in October. I was glad my own scheduling dilemma had involved two bands I wanted to hear, and that I’d managed to get in front of both.
“Play it Cool” approached a more familiar kind of discomfort: being socially introverted, getting trapped inside your own head and then drinking enough that keeping quiet turns into oversharing. So much for playing it cool. The band recorded the song at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals during its 2026 sessions, and its subject sits comfortably beside the concerns I heard in “27.” These are songs about the things people can bring into a room without anybody else knowing they’re carrying them.
The 13-song set eventually delivered one of the most recognizable bass lines in rock, Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears.” Grits & Greens slayed it. After a run through their own material, that was a great way to finish my second show of the night. I’d started with horns and funk at Backline and ended with Ozzy at the Canoe. The revised plan was working out just fine.
Playing it forward
Afterward, I spent a few more minutes with Ryann and Jesse discussing the set and what was coming next. That included Play it Forward, the charity music festival Grits & Greens organizes to benefit Extra Table FEEDS. This year’s event is scheduled for November 1 at Keg & Barrel in Hattiesburg, with seven acts on the bill.
Stephen Wade Scott, Grace Manor Haints, Jacob Arnold & the Bird Dogs, Rufus McBlack, Electric Ramble and The Iceman Special will join Grits & Greens, who headline the event. The band reports that the 2025 festival raised more than $14,000 to help feed people in Mississippi. That gives this next gathering something substantial to build on, along with a lineup full of music I’m looking forward to hearing.
We plan to be on assignment for that one in November. What started as a conversation before a show had already revealed one connection between bands. The conversation afterward gave me another date to put on the calendar and several more artists to get acquainted with.
Afterglow
My original plan was to meet Randy and Tina for Grits & Greens. Then Backline added a Buffalo to the evening, and I ended up with two venues, two bands and a new appreciation for both. I still wish they’d shared a stage that night. Leaving Float Like a Buffalo mid-set was the one part of the arrangement I wasn’t happy about, even with another show waiting.
But I got time with the Backline folks, caught up with my friends at the Canoe and left with a November assignment in mind. Plans are subject to change, and this time I’ve got no regrets about following the change across town.
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