Nordista Freeze and Friends Fire Up Brooklyn Bowl

Prom seldom lives up to the expectations we have for it, and there are plenty of flaws in the institution, from pressuring teens to spend lots of money to reinforcing the gender binary. That doesn’t mean it’s unredeemable. Not everything from exceptional rocker Nordista Freeze’s Space Prom could be incorporated into a high school dance, but anyone organizing a prom could take some notes from his book. 

Whether your adolescent prom experience was good or not, Saturday’s show was a joyful, effervescent ride for its entire three-hour run. It was a much-needed counterpoint to the isolating deep freeze Nashville went into following heavy snow on Jan. 15. Several shows around town were canceled Saturday because of roads that hadn’t thawed out. Though main thoroughfares were clear, there were some treacherous spots on the side streets around Brooklyn Bowl, and a handful of the many, many special guest singers booked for Space Prom ended up being stuck elsewhere in town. 

Just before showtime, the venue was jam-packed and bustling, with an array of flying-saucer folk mingling among the snazziest attendees of Senior Prom ’89. Drawing on a seemingly bottomless well of energy, Freeze took the stage dressed as a space pirate and spent the night high-kicking and bopping from one side of the stage to the other, leading the crowd and a massive band through more than two dozen covers. This gig was part of the sixth run of Space Prom (which this time included taking the show on the road to Savannah, Ga.) since the inaugural event at Chinese restaurant Lucky Bamboo in 2018. Aided by a few props and costumes, all the performers stepped back from their original music and had some fun in a way that’s inventive and inclusive — rather than the traditional king and queen, the audience votes for a Prom Star, in this case Harrison, who committed to the bit as an alien — and frankly more fun than a garden-variety tribute concert. 

In what seems to be a unifying thread in his career, Freeze & Co. nailed translating the do-it-together energy of a house show to a much larger venue. The “& Co.” part of that phrase is key, from the core band to the guests who stayed onstage all night (ace Nashville songsmith Jarren Blair as well as Jade Long and Jessica Thompson of Athens, Ga., pop duo Hotel Fiction) to the roster of singers who appeared for one song each. Among abundant highlights, Blair took the lead on two Prince tunes — the ubiquitous “Let’s Go Crazy” and the superb B-side “How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore” — while Hotel Fiction had practically the whole place pogoing to a medley of ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me” and “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).” The duo also joined in with Freeze on a delightful version of disco-era R&B heroes Boney M.’s “Rasputin.”

Though Cocteau Twins’ “Heaven or Las Vegas” was released in 1990, stretching the theme of “songs you’d hear at your prom if it was held in space during the 1980s” a smidge, Majeska and Bandit Heart’s duet on it was exceptional. Meanwhile, Venus & the Flytraps on The Runaways’ “Cherry Bomb,” Connor Kelly and the Time Warp on Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” and Dave Welsch (of The Thing With Feathers) and Danny Wagner (from Greta Van Fleet) on Living Colour’s “Cult of Personality” brought the snarling, howling rock.

Freeze took the mic to frame the second half of the show with portions of Styx’s anthemic “Come Sail Away”; he also sang Paul McCartney’s divisive “Temporary Secretary,” leaning into its Devo-ness, and crooned Huey Lewis and the News’ “If This Is It.” Sunshine Scott not only sang Lipps, Inc.’s “Funkytown” but also fired off two tenor sax solos. The only thing that would’ve made that better was if the robot keyboardist’s vocoder vocal had actually come through the P.A., a testament to the sound-mix issues that pop up at this venue often enough to notice them. 

There was a lot of talking during Paul McDonald’s heartfelt rendition of Jimmy Buffett’s “Come Monday,” which was maybe just too slow a song for this show. Though Huron John deserves credit for trying a different approach to The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?” — a song so intimately tied to its studio recording — I didn’t care for his almost-nü-metal delivery. I also felt my age, far closer to prom chaperone than attendee, when Freeze introduced stellar singer Tristan McIntosh as “Tristan,” and I was immediately confused because songsmith Tristen didn’t emerge from the wings. Regardless, McIntosh was awesome on the oft-covered “Angel of the Morning” (here in the style of Juice Newton). 

Before the all-hands-on-deck conclusion of “Come Sail Away,” Sarah Potenza put an exclamation point on the show with Europe’s galloping-into-Valhalla epic “The Final Countdown.” I’m grateful that Nashville continues to be known as a hub for all kinds of music, and it felt good to see what felt close to a sold-out crowd come out — with a sharp wind and temps in the teens, no less — for something like this. As our ecosystem of scenes evolves, making sure we always have room for left-of-center creative endeavors is as crucial as ever.

Features

Nordista Freeze’s Space Prom, a Tribute to Pop History, Keeps on Trucking

• Edd Hurt