Jason Isbell Opened Brooklyn Bowl Nashville to an Empty Room

Brooklyn Bowl Nashville’s first show arrived without the crowd its founders had planned for. On May 15, 2020, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires performed acoustically inside the new room while listeners watched a livestream from home.

The venue had intended to open in March. A tornado struck Nashville, then pandemic restrictions stopped the live music business. The acoustic performance also coincided with the release of Isbell’s Reunions. A full-band appearance had been considered, but the smaller lineup made distancing onstage possible.

That distinction matters to the venue’s history: its first performance and its first shows with an in-person audience happened more than a year apart. Brooklyn Bowl Nashville welcomed those audiences in June 2021. Isbell and Shires had already given the stage its debut, with cameras carrying the music out of an otherwise empty room.

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Sources: news.pollstar.com (1); news.pollstar.com (2).