The line starts just outside the doors of downtown Raleigh’s Lincoln Theatre and snakes down Cabarrus Street, extending onto Blount Street.
It’s just before 7 p.m. on an unseasonably mild Thursday in February.
The beer flows. So does throwback country music from portable speakers.
At the front of that line, amid impromptu karaoke to “You Never Even Called Me by My Name” and “Strawberry Wine,” are fans who have been tailgating since early afternoon.
They’re here to see Raleigh-based rock band American Aquarium kick off their Roadtrip to Raleigh music festival.
Fans from 47 states and six countries have traveled here for the 10th anniversary of this event — a showcase for the band, city, and the intersecting grassroots genres of alt-country and indie rock, held over two days at the Lincoln.
And it all started with a CD release party.
American Aquarium front man BJ Barham takes a quiet moment on the tour bus.
“Come See What Raleigh’s All About”
The ringleader of this Americana circus is BJ Barham, the fierce front man of American Aquarium who wears his heart on his sleeve like so many tattoos.
BJ started American Aquarium as an NC State student in 2006. By the mid-2010s, the band had scrapped and clawed its way to selling out venues with 500- to 1,000-person capacity throughout the country.
The band was also gaining momentum nationally with critics, getting attention from outlets like Rolling Stone, SPIN, and No Depression.
But in the Triangle, American Aquarium was still playing smaller venues, struggling to get more than 500 people at shows. The group needed a way to bring that national momentum to Raleigh for the hometown release show of its 2015 album, Wolves.
“So what we came up with was, ‘What if we invited all of our friends from around the country to come to Raleigh for the weekend? Just so we can finally sell out some of these rooms in our hometown,’” BJ recollected a few days before this year’s Roadtrip.
So the band pulled in The Black Lillies, Cory Branan, John Moreland, and Turnpike Troubadours as openers for its album release shows at Lincoln in late January of 2015.
They also used the hashtag #roadtriptoraleigh to promote the shows. As it turns out, it was a call to action.
And fans answered.
“We were promoting this album release, but we were telling people, ‘#roadtriptoraleigh — come hang out with us in our hometown. Come see what Raleigh’s all about,’” BJ says.
In the second year the hashtag turned into an official title, kicking off a decade and counting of American Aquarium bringing its friends to Raleigh — fans and fellow musicians alike — for a music festival weekend every February. And now, the shows tend to sell out.
“Nobody’s coming to make a ton of money. … We’re not Live Nation. We’re not AEG. We’re not this massive festival that’s gonna be able to pay you headliner money,” BJ says. “Yet every year we get headliner talent.”
That headliner talent has included the likes of Turnpike and Zach Bryan, who now sell out football stadiums and basketball arenas, along with massive acts like Charley Crockett, Futurebirds, Morgan Wade, Lucero, 49 Winchester, Muscadine Bloodline, and Charles Wesley Godwin.
Ryan Van Fleet
This year’s Night 3 headlining opener, Maggie Rose, had played the Grand Ole Opry the night before. Days earlier, she was at the Grammys, nominated for her latest album, No One Gets Out Alive.
BJ attributes the ability to field such talented lineups to the festival’s grassroots approach.
“I think it’s because we keep it in house; we keep it (to) our friends. You’re not dealing with a promoter; you’re not dealing with these monolithic entities,” he says. “You’re dealing with the guy from American Aquarium, a singer, texting you or calling you or sending you a message and saying, ‘We handpick this every year, and I would love for you to come to our hometown and let us show you a fun weekend.’”
In curating the lineup, BJ also searches for artists who are at the grassroots stage of their careers.
American Aquarium closes each night of Roadtrip with a two-hour set. The middle act tends to be a “power-punching” national headliner. In addition to Maggie Rose, this year’s included The Lone Bellow and Shovels & Rope.
But Roadtrip is also about music discovery.
“If something moves me, I want you to know about it. I want to tell people, ‘Holy (expletive), I found this band and they made me feel something. Hopefully they make you feel something, too,’” BJ says.
He adds: “I want you to come and fall in love with bands that maybe you’ve heard of but haven’t given a chance yet. But I also want you to come and hear a band that you’ve never even heard of. Like, just come in blind.”
That’s where the early openers come in.
He compares one early opener, The Wilder Blue, to the country-rock harmonizing of the Eagles. Another, The Droptines, have the raw sound and sharp edges of early American Aquarium.
Of Night 2’s opener, Taylor Hunnicutt, BJ says, “In two years, she’s going to be a household name. She’s going to be one of the biggest stars in this genre.”
BJ digs deep to find such up-and-coming talent.
He also digs deep to create his own band’s setlist each night.
Rhett Huffman and Shane Boeker
A Broad Repertoire
American Aquarium played 74 songs over the three nights of this year’s Roadtrip — not counting BJ’s solo acoustic set early Saturday afternoon at Ruby Deluxe in downtown Raleigh — and less than a handful were repeated.
“It’s becoming a celebration of our catalogue,” he says.
The hits. The (relatively) unknowns. The deeply personal. All of which can be found on Wolves.
In celebration of its 10th anniversary, American Aquarium played the entire album from beginning to end, for the first time ever, on Night 1.
Proud to Call Raleigh Home
One morning during last year’s Roadtrip, BJ visited the office of then-Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin. Along with the Raleigh City Council, she proclaimed the first weekend of February Road Trip to Raleigh Weekend.
“If you’d have told me 10 years ago it’d be here, I’d have said, ‘Let’s just focus on year number two and see if we can pull it off a second year,’” BJ says. “But here we are 10 years later, and now the city of Raleigh fully gets behind it.”
And not just elected officials.
Trophy Brewing makes a Tough Folks beer for each Roadtrip, sourced entirely from Wake Country ingredients and named after the band’s 2018 song. Black & White Coffee Roasters makes a Cheerwine-inspired cherry soda coffee in honor of the festival.
The band also posts a guide to downtown Raleigh on social media, sharing recommendations within walking distance of the Lincoln Theatre. In recent years, Eye Heart Tattoo has inked fans with Roadtrip-themed tattoos.
“And it’s really neat to watch your hometown embrace the weekend and know that there’s 2,000 kids that don’t live in Raleigh, (but) they’re in town. They want to eat a good meal; they want to go get a good drink; they want to go get a good cup of coffee. And we’re telling them exactly where to go,” BJ says.
“And it’s fun to watch people fall in love with Ashley Christensen’s food or Scott Crawford’s food or Sam Jones’ barbecue. It’s really fun to watch somebody from Washington State be like, ‘I cannot wait to get Bojangles. As soon as my plane hits the ground, I’m going to get a Cajun Filet Biscuit.’”
BJ grew up in Reidsville, just north of Greensboro. But he has called the Raleigh area home since 2002, when he moved here to attend NC State.
He never packed up for music meccas like New York, Austin, or Nashville.
American Aquarium front man BJ Barham (top left) is joined by members of The Wilder Blue and The Lone Bellow, who opened Night 1 of Roadtrip to Raleigh this year.
“And I think that speaks to (the fact that) I have found success in my career; I’ve been lucky enough to have been afforded the means to live anywhere I want to live in this country. And I choose here,” BJ says.
“I choose to still be here. I have to remind people (of) that sometimes: Me still being here and raising my family here is a choice,” he says. “But it’s a choice that was very easy for me to make just because of my affinity for Raleigh.”
For better or worse, the city has changed dramatically in the last quarter century.
“But I think Raleigh still has its charm. Raleigh feels like a small town with a skyline. And those are my favorite kinds of towns,” he says. “When you drive into it, you see this kind of expanse explode out of nowhere: the big buildings and the centralized connectivity, walkability of the downtown.
“But then you start talking to people and you realize that it’s just a small town that has some pretty big buildings.”
The band has curated Roadtrip — the venue, the food and drink recs, the hotels where fans stay — so that everything is walkable.
“Everything’s within three or four blocks. The walkability of downtown is what I hope people fall in love with,” BJ says. “You can throw a rock and hit three or four different (James) Beard–nominated chefs’ (restaurants). You can go get some of the most high-end cocktails on the East Coast. Or you can go to one of the s—–est dive bars in America and have an ice-cold $2 beer.”
“We try to remind people that, yes, we have a lot of really nice things in Raleigh. But we also have the holes-in-the-wall. We have the things that haven’t changed in 20 years,” he says. “And I try to give people the best of both worlds. Just as much as I’m telling somebody to go to Death & Taxes, I’m telling them they can’t miss Mecca.”
BJ estimates that just over 20 folks have been to all 10 years of Roadtrip. Most don’t live here. They’re traveling from dozens of states, even overseas.
“To see a band that most people have never even heard of,” BJ points out. “Raleigh is different: There’s a lot of folks in Raleigh that have heard of our band. But we’re not superstars. We’re not this world-famous phenomenon. We’re just a grassroots rock-and-roll band from Raleigh that a lot of people have a special place in their heart for,” he says.
“And we know that not just because they tell us, but because they spend the money on the plane tickets. They spend the money on the hotels,” BJ continues. “They go out and eat every night and support a lot of the people that I love in this community. It’s a special thing.”
BJ and the various iterations of his band have played more than 4,000 shows in nearly every US state and in venues across the pond.
“I’m proud to have played just about every major city and tiny town in America,” he says, “and still come back to Raleigh and call it home.”
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