Bluegrass isn’t the only thing growing in Bowling Green. Bowling Green has a diverse music culture. Music acts from Nappy Roots to Von Guarde call BG home. More recently, Cage the Elephant was described by a UK Web news source, the Guardian, as a band that could be classified with Rage Against the Machine.

Our aim is to showcase BG’s finest, giving the city more pleasant associations that venture from the norm. Ragtime? Check. Progressive rock? Check. Cornhole? Not so much.

Matt Shultz was drunk. Not on alcohol, (well, he was) but on the love that he was feeling from both his girlfriend and from Bowling Green’s music scene.

So, at about 1 a.m. on a Thursday morning, Schultz was sitting on the pavement outside Tidballs. Both he and his girlfriend were using a notepad to write love notes back and forth to each other while he wound down from the show he had just put on.

While you sit with Shultz, you feel the need to pop open a bottle of Sam Adams and sit there and shoot the breeze. He gives off an aura of accepting everyone who is there with him, welcoming them as if they were a long lost brother, even if they have never met.

“It’s people who appreciate what you’ve done, who love what you have made. That’s worth something to ya,” he said about the fans.

Cage the Elephant started up about two years ago, although Shultz, his brother Brad Shultz and friend Jared Champion had been playing together since their high school days.

Now, with Daniel Tichenor and Lincoln Parish completing the band, they have made themselves known locally and internationally.

You may be asking yourself, is this a big deal? Well, yeah, it is.

Recently, Cage the Elephant has had the success in Europe that most bands could only dream of. Not only have members recently toured with the Pigeon Detectives and hit the top of the British charts with their single “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” (no. 32 to be exact), but they have also done something amazing for a band of their sudden rise to fame – they’ve stayed true to their roots.

Recently, the Bowling Green natives played a few shows before shipping back overseas to the Queen’s country, including an impromptu show at Tidballs Aug. 13, as well as a scheduled show Aug. 14. There, the band played some songs from its debut album, which was released in June.

To get an idea of why the band is becoming such a hit, take for example one of its latest shows at Tidballs. One thing that was apparent from the show on Aug. 13 was the energy.

The crowd was being seduced by Shultz’s voice, hanging on every word.

What did the succubus of the Elephant have to say?

“Life is an STD that always ends in death,” he rasped to the room under the smoke and barely turning ceiling fans.

“My point is to appreciate the people around you, and I appreciate ya’ll.”

The following of Cage the Elephant was in full force around the stage, urging the band on in a chorus of cheers and dancing.

Those who stood around the stage had a look that was metro-sexual in nature, with both sexes wearing pants so tight that you wondered if they were trying to turn coal into diamonds. The faded black was almost threadbare, showing a milky white underneath. Mullets were in full force, with the 80s metal-poof hair to match.

Some wore metal band T-shirts, giving the impression that they were there in ‘85 when Slayer rocked the Garden, but looked as though it took them three days to grow a five o’clock shadow. Tattoos were not a requirement, but most flew their nautical stars and rose bushes with pride anyway.

Of course, some in the crowd that night couldn’t be classified as regulars or groupies. Some people there chose to come to the bar to get away from the everyday norm in life, and not specifically to see the band.

Matt Lanham, an Owensboro native, didn’t have the look of a Bowling Green hipster.

In fact, he seemed out of place in the rock-clad bar. With his dress pants and button-up shirt and tie, he was the definition of an off duty nine-to-fiver who could give you a home equity loan.

For the entirety of the show, Lanham stood in the back of the room with his buddies, watching the band play with a beer in his hand and a smile on his face.

“You can’t find music like this in Owensboro,” Lanham commented.

Lanham said it was his first time watching Cage the Elephant live.

He said that though he was from Owensboro, he would definitely come back to Tidballs for more music like Cage.

The energy put forth by the band could leave you in amazement, as well as with soaked pants from spilled beer.

From a casual observation, you could almost bet that everyone in that crowd was having the time of their lives, with the showers from drinks being spilled and the skinnier guys in the crowd being tossed into the air.

John Bond, a Western student from Franklin, Tenn., was not being tossed, but was enjoying his beer and the show instead.

“Man, they rock,” he said. “They give off great energy and flow that keeps ya dancing all night long, man.”

The next day was deja vu, with Shultz sitting outside Tidballs again, this time with a more appropriate blood alcohol level for public property. He sat on the curb calmly, wearing a pair of Chuck Taylor’s and talked to someone about the leather bracelet he had just bought at a store in the mall.

While he was sitting there, fans came up to him and congratulated him on the show the night before.

When Shultz was asked about what type of music he wanted to do in the future, he smiled and said straightforwardly, “I want to make music that touches people in their no-no places.”

With such intensity behind the show and the feel of love coming from the crowd, one would have to wonder if Schultz hasn’t succeeded in giving Western’s music scene an eargasm.

Reach Eric Isbell at news@chherald.com.