NORDISTA FREEZE
FRI MAY 29 | 3 PM | MESS HALL TRUCK STOP
Savannah favorite, indie pop prince, and Space Prom auteur Nordista Freeze is attempting a world record of playing 50 shows in 50 states in 30 days. It’s no surprise his Georgia show is at his second home in the Hostess City. Unlike the rollicking, freewheeling rock show you’d typically get, this is a free, solo acoustic show with stripped down versions of some of the softer songs like Wisteria.
He’s also been playing a cover of With a Little Help From My Friends at most of the stops. A road warrior veteran of well over 900 live shows, the man has a LOT of friends. To make such an endeavor work, not every show can happen in a conventional venue. In this case, it’s a custom trucker hat shop in City Market, across the way from Vinnie Van Go-Go’s.
To get 50 shows done in 30 days, there are several two- and three-show days. This day starts in Charleston and ends in Jacksonville, so the 3 pm start time is odd but necessary. And, seriously, is there a better option for your Friday afternoon than this? There is not, so grab a slice, down a Wet Willie’s 1000-proof slushy treat, and get Freezed. For more deets on the tour, see the Nordista Freeze interview story elsewhere in this week’s edition of The Savannahian.
MEASUREMENT + NICHOLAS MALLIS AND THE BOREALIS + BERO BERO
SAT MAY 30 | 7 PM | SENTIENT BEAN
The members of Measurement come from wildly different directions to create a sound no other Savannah band is attempting. Singer Jenn Carroll debuted on stage for a 2020 Halloween cover show in Salute Your Jorts, paying tribute to ‘00s LA indie pop rockers Rilo Kiley. Guitarist Corey Barhorst spent time in Kylesa before joining Black Tusk. Bassist Chase Rudeseal joined Kylesa on bass a couple of years after Barhorst left. Before that, he spent time in A Girl A Gun A Ghost with Measurement drummer Danny Worsley.
Combined, you’re looking at about nine centuries of Savannah bands, give or take a few hundred years. The result is an intriguing creative product that isn’t sludge metal or metalcore, but a form of hard rock with occasional New Wave synthesizers that could be the love child of The Cars’ pre-pop material and The Cure’s more mainstream hits.
The synth-free songs do ride a punk edge, minus the snotty attitude. Carroll’s vocals do not lend themselves to brattiness. They do, however, cut through the thick production with clarity and can soar when necessary.
If Measurement’s synths recall the oldest new wave, Nicholas Mallis goes further into the genre with the weirdness of early Devo, the originality of the first two B-52s LPs, and the joyful shamelessness of The Waitresses. At his best, the Athens, GA, artist blends oddball lounge music with modern rock like Beck did on Midnight Vultures before slowing it down and getting all moody.
Mallis has been far more consistent, releasing music for a dozen years now that fits in the amorphous confines he created. Above all else, it’s the kind of fun pop that Athens has been pumping out for decades.
Speaking of fun, if you can’t let loose at a Bero Bero show, you may actually have two left feet. Whether you can dance or not, their sexy synth rock should at least give you the urge to try. Completing the undeniable New Wave influence hat trick on this bill, the duo takes the danceability of artists like Soft Cell, the sensuality of Eurythmics, and the synth minimalism of early Human League and puts Veronica Garcia-Melendez’s keytar in your face. You have no excuses if you are sitting down.
SKINMAN + ZERO MOB + LOWER RECEIVER + PALMETTO SLUG
FRI MAY 29 | 8 PM | THE PORTAL ARCADE
With so much metalcore and screamo out there, it’s refreshing to hear a relatively new hardcore punk band that plays hardcore punk and nothing but hardcore punk. Hattiesburg, home of Southern Miss, has the kind of vibrant indie/DIY scene you wouldn’t expect from the deepest of the Deep South. Skinman, featuring MSPAINT singer DeeDee on drums, make ferocious, sinister hardcore.
The band take the foundations cemented by Minor Threat and SS Decontrol, add the speed and proficiency of Bad Brains, and throw in slower parts recalling the thrash-adjacent mosh breaks that helped make the genre complete. Songs are short, angry, and cathartic. No frills, but lots of thrills.
In a similar vein, Tampa’s Zero Mob get right to the point with energetic fury and furious energy. Their five-song demo clocks in at six minutes. If that reminds you of DRI’s Dirty Rotten LP, a 22-song, 16-minute blast of hardcore, give yourself a gold star and a day off from work. Zero Mob could be their grandkids. Instead of conforming in a town built on death metal, they made the folks awfully proud.
Fellow Florida hardcore specialists Lower Receiver are a tad bit more patient in asserting their anger. If their relatively epic seven-minute, four-song demo Hardcore 2025 is any indication of the state of the style, it’s in good hands. If they aren’t fans of OG NYHC heavyweights Breakdown and NY Hoods, they sure sound like it.
Local support comes from the duo Palmetto Slug, featuring two of the scene’s MVPs, JR and Tanner Hamilton. Their sludge/doom/d-beat metal project is 100% improv, with no two shows the same. Given the linear hardcore of the three out-of-towners, PS is an excellent choice to throw a few curveballs at the Portal crowd without sacrificing a microgram of heaviness.
THE SCREAM QUEENS + ONE LONELY GOAT + THE HYSTERIAS
SAT MAY 30 | 9 PM | THE WORMHOLE
Horror punk originators The Misfits were born in the grimy, working-class town of Lodi, NJ, about as far from the sunny, subdivision lawns of Boca Raton as can be. Luckily, that didn’t stop The Scream Queens from turning COVID lockdown boredom into something loud, catchy, and covered in fake blood.
Their modern take on the poppy punk of Glenn Danzig’s seminal group, with Ramones-style hooks and Type O Negative dark humor, was born in a garage in 2020. Possibly one with fancy overhead storage and a finished floor with those specks under a shiny epoxy coating, but maybe not. The songs have the same midnight-movie thrills that Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Day of the Triffids gave ‘50s and ‘60s filmgoers. The closest comparison just might be the post-Danzig Misfits, which ended up lasting more than three times as long as the original recipe.
Adding unimaginable weight to the proceedings is Savannah doom sludge crushers One Lonely Goat. Combining the heaviness of Abominable Iron Sloth, the girth of Crowbar, and the unapologetic song length of Pallbearer, expect to be flattened.
Old school, all-female punk rockers The Hysterias open with the kind of riot grrrl energy that scares chickenshit conformists and makes everyone else glad they showed up.
ELECTRIC DYNAMITE
FRI MAY 29 | 8 PM | BROUGHTON STREET BOWL & BREW
Countless bands play guitar-forward hard rock covers. Few put the amount of thought and effort into setting all the dials just right to capture the vintage tube tone like Electric Dynamite. Aside from making musicians, and guitarists in particular, smile knowingly, it adds something special that elevates the whole shebang.
Frontman JT Fitch is a devotee of the ‘70s guitar sound so foundational to almost everything loud backed by bass and drums. They have a few originals, but mostly play classic rock covers by everyone from KISS to .38 Special to Jimi Hendrix. Of course it takes guts to tackle anything by Hendrix, who remains perhaps the best rock guitarist ever. The trio pulls it off, and Fitch gets as close as any sane person can expect.
They also keep the mood loose, imploring the crowd to maintain adult beverage consumption, since “the more you drink, the better we sound.” That said, they sound pretty good stone sober. But like all rock shows, beer and cocktails can’t hurt.