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- August 16, 2022
Mystic Prom: Brooklyn’s Take on Concerts, Fashion, Prom, and Expression
For the second year in a row our friends at Brooklyn Made have extended their accepting hand to host a night of fashion, abstract elegance and music concealed in a vintage-DIY Prom and unlike high school, the more unconventional the better. August 13th was a night dedicated to the unforeseen underdogs, lovers of music, and the comfort of community both in and out of Brooklyn. The part concert, fashion exhibit, tarot reading, drag show was hard to materialize prior to experiencing it for myself but after being apart of the madness I think that was the point.
In a sea of repurposed tulle, secondhand velvet, and platform boots below outfits of opposing style there were groups of strangers coming together to celebrate favorite artists, vendors, friends, or the perfect after party. None of it made sense but it didn’t really need to. As I walked in through the right side of the box office (that’s right, this place had a separate box office) I entered a red dimmed room where everything was happening at once.
Ahead of me were double doors– the classy ones with buttons covering each stitch– displaying bands of varying sound. Some I’d seen intoxicate the stage before, like Stello, and some were off my radar but performed in a way that made me wish I’d discovered them myself– thank you Big Honey. To my left was a pool table occupied by men in polo shirts and khaki trousers across from women caressed in dark silk and washed denim, personifying the cliche “opposites attract.”
Big Honey was in the middle of their set when I first walked in and it was nothing short of mesmerizing. With a collection of instruments scattering the stage their sound was inventive with a classic taste. Smooth-trimmed saxophones, deeply thick guitar riffs, and a blues backbeat amid a vocalist ahead of his time concocted a groove that emulated within the crowd. As their set came to its finale, a moment of silence never followed. The intermissions were filled with anything and nothing you’d imagined. Fashion shows, DJ’s, and charismatic conversation filled the spaces between to create a never-ending show that ironically eliminated the suffocating feeling of a crowd–groups were scattered yet unionized.
As Stello graced the audience their presence was addictive in both presentation and personality. In garbs of unmatched patterns, a reddened frequency contrasted by the lead singers brightened hue they put on a show worth remembering. From the get-go the audience was intimately drawn to their every move, note, and ballad. Between songs unheard and classics like “Time Of The Season,” someone, somewhere, was singing along with heavy vibration. They were euphorically psychedelic, electric, and a sweetly expansive household name in the making. Their set spewed with adrenaline so much so that when the time came to say goodbye it was very hard to leave.
Not a corner of this venue was uncommitted. Lining the walls were friends, strangers, and small business owners putting their work on display. Flip books of film, handmade jewelry, street styled clothing, and delicate slip dresses trimmed in lace magnetized the space–building on its already eclectic energy. There was no structure, no pressure, no where you needed to be at any given time, an immersive experience that highlighted music while appreciating all of its working parts.
