Brittany Howard and Bermuda Triangle Charm a Sold-Out Basement East

Heading into Wednesday night's show, The Spin heard that The Basement East had sold out within hours of the announcement that Bermuda Triangle would play. A sell-out at The Beast, for the record, is somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 to 500 tickets. Bermuda Triangle, you see, is a new project — possibly a one-off, but we’ll get to that later — featuring Alabama Shakes frontwoman Brittany Howard along with fellow Nashville songwriters Becca Mancari and Jesse Lafser. The show was hosted by She Shreds, a Portland, Ore.-based print publication dedicated to covering women guitarists and bassists, and the second folks saw Grammy winner and rightfully revered rock star Howard’s name attached, well, it became the hottest ticket of the week.

Sure enough, it was a packed house when we showed up, brimming with a crowd that spanned all ages, full of music-biz and New Nashville types, hipsters and normies. That is to say, all the types of people — which is all types of people — who have taken a liking to the Shakes and anything else Howard is involved in. By the time Bermuda Triangle took the stage for their headlining set, The Beast was overflowing and overheated, full of folks who weren’t sure exactly what to expect, but who almost certainly weren’t expecting a three-piece string band backed by a drum machine.

We had a couple of strong sets to get through before that moment came. Beneath foil letter balloons spelling out “SHE SHREDS,” agreeable pop-rock trio Liz Cooper and the Stampede kicked things off shortly before 8:30 with their tight two-part vocal harmonies and loping rhythms. Their material featured occasional showy, vaguely jammy instrumental stretches between more grounded and generally rootsy pop song structures, and the bouncy and charming “Mountain Man” was a highlight. Cooper & Co. are impressive players, and tight, and their set-closing cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” certainly didn’t rub us the wrong way.

After a quick turnaround, Becca Mancari and band were onstage, issuing clear, clean and pure folk rock. Mancari is very much a songwriter in the tradition of Dylan, but even more so Lucinda Williams, Wilco and Gillian Welch — she’s skilled at taking straight-ahead, beautifully sung folk tunes and adorning them with rock ’n’ roll flourishes and dynamics. Ahead of the song “Arizona,” she announced that her debut record will be out in October. It’s been a long time coming, and it’s one to keep an eye out for. Mancari’s songs are wistful and winsome, and she’s a standout in Nashville’s overcrowded field of folk-oriented songwriters.

After a few encouraging and positive words from Shreds founder and editor-in-chief Fabi Reyna about inclusiveness and diversity, Bermuda Triangle entered to roars from the crowd. Backed by a drum machine, the trio started off its set on stand-up bass (Howard), acoustic guitar (Mancari) and banjo (Lafser). Clad in Hawaiian shirts with Howard proclaiming that they’d be our travel guides for the evening and that this would “probably be [their] last show,” the trio acknowledged the sweltering heat in the room, trading lead vocals on a set of soulful acoustic ballads. It was part old-time string band and part, um, electro-folk ensemble. But thanks to their world-class three-part harmonies and Howard’s hammy showmanship, it worked.

The room fell to a hush any time Howard took the lead, showcasing her untouchable vocal control, but Lafser and Mancari brought special moments of their own. One song in particular, a bluegrass-imbued tune on which Lafser sang about the importance of letting the one you love fly free, was especially beautiful and transfixing.

And then, well, that was pretty much it. Bermuda Triangle played a seven- or eight-song set, bid us farewell, and slipped backstage, leaving the fourth band member — their drum machine — onstage to beep and click and soak up the applause. There was to be no encore, as it seemed Howard & Co. had very much already played all that they intended to play, leaving attendees to mill around for a few minutes before eventually finding their way out. “Leave them wanting more” is the idiom, of course, and BT certainly did that.

Check out more photos in our slideshow.

In The Spin — the Scene's live review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.