I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: March 6, 2018] Sneaks

I’m fascinated by how opening acts get chosen for shows.  Sneaks was an opener for Palm last summer.  So I have now seen Sneaks more than bands I’ve actually wanted to see.

This Spoon show was not advertised with an opening act, so I was surprised (and a little disappointed) that there was one.  I had enjoyed Sneaks as an opener for Palm. I assume it was because it was a smaller venue (PhilaMOCA fits 250, TLA fits 1,000) and we were more intimate, that the Sneaks vibe worked well.  Spoon is quite a lot bigger than Palm, so I guess that’s a step up, but it brings perils.

About the PhilaMOCA show I wrote:

She has a great raw punk bass sound–it reminds me of the sound of Black Flag… Her riffs were cool, and while repeated a lot, they were certainly interesting enough to keep a song going.

She was also accompanied by a DJ. whose name I didn’t catch.  He kept some good beats and threw in some interesting sound effects.  It gave the show a bit more spontaneity than I was expecting from a drum machine based show.

Sneaks played a whole bunch of songs (most of them are quite short about 2 minutes or so).  Each song had a cool or interesting bass riff, she sang (deadpan) around it for 2 minutes and that was it.  She also did a couple of songs with no bass, just a freestyle rap over the drum machine.  And after 35 or so minutes she was done.

 

For this show, we were expecting a Nor’easter (which would drop 12-18 inches of snow) to come down that night.  The show was billed to start at 8:30, so if there was no opener, we’d be home before the snow even started.  I was a little bummed to see Sneaks come out.  She also didn’t quite fill the room right.  It was perhaps too big for her small set up.  She never introduced herself.  She thanked us a lot for our applause–and the audience did respond–but it never got off the ground, somehow.

Her bass still sounded like her bass–low and rumbling.  She played songs that were bass and DJ and then just her DJ and a freestyle.  I like her DJ a lot–he’s very fun, although I don’t feel that he did as much interesting stuff this show.

Her lyrics are okay–lots and lots of repetition.  It worked well in the smaller place because everyone was into it and singing along.  It felt a little quiet from the audience Especially when she said this was new song, world premiere, first time heard right here–sing along if you want….

She played for 35 minutes and then she was gone, just like the last time.