A few songs into SPRINTS’ sold-out show at Washington, DC’s Atlantis on Friday night, frontwoman Karla Chubb apologized for her voice being “a bit cracky and hoarse.” She blamed it on the previous night’s show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York.
But if DC fans were indeed getting a diminished Karla Chubb on Friday, hearing her at full strength might have been dangerous. As it was, she very nearly took the roof off the place.
That included climbing on railings to sing to the balcony, venturing down into the camera alley to get closer to the crowd, and then, toward the end, inviting a guitar player from the middle of the mosh pit to come up on stage and play so that Chubb could stroll about the crowd and engage in a bit of crowd surfing.
And she never stopped singing.
SPRINTS fires up a frigid DC night
When SPRINTS came to the Atlantis last year, they were just beginning to experience life as full-time musicians. Chubb, along with childhood friend and drummer Jack Callan, and bassist/vocalist Sam McCann, began making their mark back in 2019 with “The Cheek.”
They followed it up with several other well-received singles before releasing their debut album, Letter to Self, in 2024. Along with guitarist Colm O’Reilly, they embarked on an extensive tour of Europe and the USA.
But O’Reilly soon left and Zac Stevenson came on board to complete the current lineup. Their second album, All That is Over, was released last Fall to very positive reviews.
Half of the 16-song set on Friday came from the new album. They opened with the slow burn of “Something’s Gonna Happen” before transitioning into the insane energy of the lead single “Descartes.” Leave it to an Irish band to build a punk classic out of a 17th-century philosopher.
Other standouts from the new album included the urgent “Beg” and a very dramatic “To the Bone,” with McCann swapping out his throbbing bass for a haunting acoustic guitar.
The middle of the set featured four numbers from Letter to Self, including a harrowing “Heavy,” which kicked the mosh pit into full gear.
On “How Does the Story Go?” from a 2022 EP, Chubb bounced around the stage, careened into both McCann and Stevenson, and swung her mic wildly around the suddenly cramped stage.
Chubb had already made a foray or two into the crowd before coming to “Need” late in the show. She was almost indistinguishable in the middle of the surging dancers as she screamed “I need you, I need you…” over and over.
That song provided a sensational transition to their latest single, a powerhouse cover of Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon.” Of all the influences evident in SPRINTS’ music – and they have cited everyone from Cat Stevens to the Pixies - Kathleen Hanna and her riot grrrl bands Bikini Kill, The Julie Ruin, and Le Tigre hold a prominent spot.
As for Chubb, she has described SPRINTS’ music as “loud, fun, and a little melancholic.”
SPRINTS’ highly audience-engaged performance – like bringing that fan on stage to play guitar or acknowledging another super-fan’s birthday – stood in stark contrast to the act that opened for them, My Transparent Eye.
The New York quartet plays an atmospheric brand of hard-driving noise rock, and they seem primarily intent on reminding us all that shoegaze doesn’t merely describe a sound – it is also an attitude.
The band spent most of its 30-minute set staring down, on their knees with the pedals, and facing away and playing into their amps. They acknowledged the audience one time, with a perfunctory, mumbled “thank you” just before finishing.
That final song, “Beatrice,” is a powerful sample of what they can do, but it didn’t seem that they ever really had the audience’s full attention. Not like the headliner.
Actually, one of the most intriguing aspects of the early part of the evening was the profoundly bizarre choice of house music that someone mischievous Atlantis employee chose for the evening. Before the show began, it was almost entirely comprised of WWII-era tunes.
“(They’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover” and “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” were odd choices to warm up a punk crowd. Plenty of Marty Robbins and Nat King Cole, as well. I think I even heard an Eddy Arnold tune.
The immediate transition from My Transparent Eye’s final number, “Beatrice” into Ella singing “Someone to Watch Over Me,” probably has meaning that eludes me.
But SPRINTS does not. They are simply producing some of the best, high-energy rock & roll of any young band out there. SPRINTS closes out the North American leg of this tour with several shows on the West Coast, before returning to Europe for three more weeks in March.