Anna Daugherty

Aisle 5 was the place to be on April 16 as Kid Sistr, Post Sex Nachos, and Kids That Fly rolled through Atlanta on their co-headline run. The room had that perfect Little Five Points energy from the start, and the night moved naturally from one set to the next without ever feeling disconnected. Three different sounds, but all living in the same space, and the crowd stayed with it the whole way through.

The Eastern took on a historic weight on April 4th as The Format, the Arizona indie-pop duo, Nate Ruess and Sam Means, finally made their triumphant return to Atlanta. This nearly-sold-out crowd had waited 20 years for this moment, so the energy was less about nostalgia and more about a long-overdue reunion with a band that defined indie music for a generation.

A sold-out crowd on a closing night carries an electric energy. S. Holden Jaffe, the indie-pop artist better known as Del Water Gap, packed out Buckhead Theatre for the final stop of his Chasing The Chimera tour, drawing front-row superfans who traveled across state lines and waited all day for the milestone.