And then we got this opportunity to open for a friend’s band for a bigger show at The Music Farm in Charleston.
“At this point,” Dickson says, referencing 2017 – a turning year for the group – “we kind of had a bunch of people playing different instruments that they didn’t really like, you know, know how to play. Before 87 Nights reached its genesis, the small practice room in Dickson’s house (located at 87 Morris, where they spent a lot of Nights) was a somewhat bare space with an electric drum kit and a few guitars, a kind of experimental laboratory where friends could collect and try their hand at what they liked.
The band as we know it now consists of five members: Zane Acord on vocals, Johnny Holliday and Preston Johnson on guitar, Mac Dickson on drums, and Shane McCoy on bass. The members, alumni of College of Charleston, came together as many college bands do: Just a couple of guys with songs in their souls, looking to share their mutual love of music. “That’s what we knew we could always bring to the table.” 87 Nights “It was always about the energy, really,” notes frontman, Zane Acord, when discussing their roots in Charleston bars and fraternities. The glue holding you to the room is 87 Nights, who exhibit enough electricity to light up Manhattan.
The second band starts and you’re thinking of your bed, its warm embrace, and by the end of that set you’ve decided that you’ll be heading home if the final group doesn’t wow you in the first chord.Īnd then that first chord happened, a cover of “Les Cactus” by Jacques Dutronc (or perhaps The Last Shadow Puppets) pours through the room, cementing you to the venue until the place closes. The first opener plays, they entertain but they don’t necessarily excite. Picture this: you’re dragged out to a place across town by your sister who’s looking for some music to move to. There’s something to be said about a band that can get a crowd moving on a Monday night.
It was always about the energy, really, that’s what we knew we could always bring to the table. Charleston group 87 Nights reveal their origins, inspirations, roadblocks, and the roots of their dynamic electricity.