Tank and The Bangas, Ariel J., Zeus

Tank and The Bangas play Brooklyn Bowl Nashville on Saturday, October 17, as part of The Last Balloon Tour. They're bringing the New Orleans collective to the bowl to perform The Last Balloon live, an album that pulls from soul, R&B, hip hop, and spoken word.

If you've followed them for a while, you know The Last Balloon is the final part of a trilogy. It started with 2019's Green Balloon, which earned them a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist, and continued with 2022's Red Balloon, nominated for Best Progressive R&B Album. The group is led by singer Tarriona 'Tank' Ball and multi-instrumentalist Norman Spence II, and their sound grew out of New Orleans' poetry community. That spoken word side of things paid off recently: they won a 2024 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album for The Heart, The Mind, The Soul.

The Last Balloon was executive-produced by Austin Brown and recorded mostly at The Complex Studios in Los Angeles, with guests Lucky Daye and Akeem Ali on the record. Live, the band is known for a communal, interactive energy—lots of gang vocals and handclaps, so it's the kind of show where you're meant to join in rather than just watch from the back. Opening the night is ZEUS, a New Orleans-born DJ, producer, and cultural curator whose sets draw on house, disco, and club culture.

Doors open at 7 PM and the show starts at 8 PM. The venue is Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, 925 3rd Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee 37201.