Here’s to a Weird New Year

The Weird Sisters dazzled onlookers at their New Year Show

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To be at a Weird Sisters show is not simply to just attend, but rather you must give into an immersion of all senses.  The presentation is more than just that of physicality.  You are floating into a dream.  The doors to the club become gates into a passageway of ethereal illusion.  You are engulfed in magical light, bundled in a landscape of curios and nestled inside the belly of beauty.  The fans are as important as the band when setting up the ambience to the tonality of the showcase.  People are shimmering in cosmic garb that aligns with the overall space-disco vibe of the artists’ imagery. It’s as if you have walked into a perfectly composed hallucination that is wildly vivid and viscerally inviting.  Imagine trying to convey your visions into concrete themes and translating them into an experience that an audience can relate to.  Picture this project of massive mental design and bring it into reality.  It’s overwhelming, but necessary.  This is The Weird Sisters… and the show hasn’t even started yet. 

This gig that I will attempt to bring into concrete text was on New Years Eve.  That is the all-important time when we humans will change everything about ourselves for the better.  We have the opportunity to reset those bad habits, lay down new goals and vow to “do better” in the upcoming 365 days.  If nothing else, it is usually a good excuse to party hard.  This New Years we were with a band that offers all those things through music.  They play with a sense of hope, desire, fantasy, escape, truth, and they party hard.  The duo is Izaac Short and Gabrielle Lewis and they bring a soundscape of buzzing synth and fuzzy guitar that is garnished in funky fusion, popping foot pedals and a soundtrack of laser shadowed fun.  

On this last day of 2025 the concert goers were gifted with a well-designed venue inside Eastside Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee.  There were mannequins of both human and alien designs properly set as onlookers in the crowd and upon the mezzanine railing, as well as a duo of faraway galaxy DJ’s offset on a smaller adjacent platform.  Old model televisions and computer monitors of yesteryear also aligned the stage, bar, and other areas of the club and looped grainy feeds of news and weather with an overlayed countdown to the changeover to 2026. I learned at one point that they had created their very own channel, and their performance was being transmitted to these tubular boxes throughout the set. 

When the music hit, it was simply stunning. The red tapestry that hid our presenters eased aside, and we gazed upon our bards who were set beside their keys and strapped with a guitar, a saxophone and an armament of talent. A backdrop of red beams shown through a cloud of eerie fog.   The opening tone was a taunting murmur of hum that drifted about the atmosphere and held us tightly.  That hope we longed for was imminent, if even just for a moment.   

Izaac and Gabrielle did not lift their grip on us until it was time to go home, and even then, they had a strange power that held us in place.  Their set was that of phenomenal sight and a sonic masterclass that swayed and weened us around the room with effortless conviction.  And the music never stopped.  No talking to the audience with frivolous engagement and no breaks between songs.  One track simply bled into the next as the musicians kept their heads down and focused on the work. Bales of hair from both artists hid their faces, and Izaac’s sunglasses and cowboy hat masked what his flow didn’t.  When Gabrielle did let us in, it was through dance, and she moved childlike in a wind created by the music. 

They punched through the midnight strike and never stopped the vibe.  We only knew as onlookers held up their phones to announce the changing of the guard, and those doomsday clocks struck zeros.  An onslaught of cash rained down from the ceiling at 12am as The Weird Sisters had created their own monetary units bearing their image.  It would mean nothing to the economy but everything to their guests.Dancing feet shuffled across the printed units as the two artists’ never broke stride. This is the 2026 that I long for.  People together in harmony, collectively, and not as factions.  The Weird Sisters entranced the gathering and the space and made us feel real passion.  Be kind and always be listening to the music. 

Photos courtesy of saturnandsun.co