Chanting began 45 minutes after the reported start time with Ryman Auditorium house lights on.
“Jelleeeeeee! Jelllllllly! Jelleeeeeeeeeee! JELLY!”
Most coasters and flyover genteel society may not have heard of rapper-turned-country breakout hit Jelly Roll.
Even for music business commentators, the jaundiced eye can cast him as another hip-hop bro-country expansion with significant facial ink.
For Jason DeFord's first full-length country album, "Whitsitt Chapel," released this weekend, the sold-out audience's response Wednesday ranged from altar call to revival.
The night gave the elderly, face-tatted, backwards-cap-wearing dudes, zaftig hotties, little kids, 12-step/recovery T-shirt-wearing 20-somethings, and regular .....
....working class people who don't stand out a sense of self-worth in a world that judges and dismisses them.
When the lights went out, the stage turned red, and a big skull with golden eyes appeared on the screen behind it, the shrieks were deafening.