Sunday was warmer than Saturday and cooler than Friday as we awoke to blue skies and a final day full of music.
The first set of the day was Brian Marsella's Imaginarium, a 10-piece ensemble performing a two-hour set of wildly diverse music, accompanied by a psychedelic video show. One of the top performances of the festival.
Laurie Anderson, who performed separately this year, brought Lou Reed's guitars down to Knoxvile with her, and set them up in an old Greyhound terminal (the same venue where I saw SML) against amplifiers to create a continuous four-hour drone of feedback. Some guy occasionally moved some of the guitars, turned them around, or otherwise manipulated them to create variations in the wall of sound. I didn't stay for all six hours (more like 10 minutes).
It was a day for large ensembles. This is Simon Hanes' Gargantua, a mammoth 15-piece band of three French horns, three trombones, three singers, three bassists, and three drummers. all conducted by Simon Hanes. This isn't my picture, but it's better than anything I took, despite the fact that I'm in it.
Dave Dougles' GIFTS Quintet was a third the size of Gargantua, and consisted of Douglas on trumpet, the great James Brandon Lewis on tenor sax, the equally great Tomeka Reid on cello, and Rafiq Bhatia and Ian Chang of the band Son Lux on guitar and drums.
The Miles Electric Band was a 10 piece (trumpet, sax, two keyboards, guitar, bass, drums, two percussionists, and a dj), all of whom were somehow connected to Miles Davis but not one of whom I'd ever heard of before.
And that was that for Big Ears 2026. I drove home today safe and sound, and am finally back in the comfy confines of my own home.
Inever know what year's Big Ears will be my last, so I soak in each year's performances as if they would be the last ones for me. And the way the world's going crazy right now and thee economy going off the tracks, this year might very well have been my last.
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