RAFFAELLA: LIVE AT NASHVILLE'S BROOKLYN BOWL

Unfortunately, many concert-goers in Nashville have honed the skill of skipping the opening act and arriving just in time for the headliner. Be warned though…those decisions will sometimes cost you the opportunity to discover that artist who you didn’t know before—the one that puts on an opening show that grabs your attention and makes you seek out more of their music. Those coming in fashionably late to the Misterwives concert at Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl may not realize it, but they missed just that opportunity if they were not there in time to catch the opening set from New York’s Raffaella.

For full disclosure, Raffaella is not a name that is completely under the radar. She has millions of streams under her belt and already has an impressive following. However, for some reason, she had never been put on our radar before this show. We were glad we had the chance for that to be changed.

Limited to a short set time, Raffaella used her time well to cover a lot of sonic ground including plenty of pure pop on songs like “drama queen” and “GROWN UP,” to pop rock with “BLONDE.” She also somehow found the time to share relatable stories about the meaning behind each song, often providing deeper context to the already explorative lyrics crafted into the work. Like the diversity of pop sounds that were explored, the songs she shared also covered a lot of topical ground, as Raffaella delved into relationships (both the good and the bad), coping with loss, and tackling head-on social and gender issues. Believe us when we say it was impressive how much we learned about one artist who had only a short time to share with us.

Drummer playing at Nashville's Brooklyn Bowl

For those of you who didn’t make it out to Nashville’s Brooklyn Bowl for Raffaella’s stop, you can experience her range of style on her 2022 EP, Live, Raff, Love (Act 1) and the more recent single, “Man Of Your Dreams,” featuring Samia. For those of you that had tickets to the show but came in “just in time” for the headliners, let this be a lesson to you as you missed out on getting to say you saw a future headliner commanding the stage in an opening spot.