Freaks to the front: Amyl and the Sniffers pack the Granada, leave blood on the dancefloor

July 31, 2024

Nick Spacek,

Amyl and the Sniffers. // photo by Nick Spacek

Amyl and the Sniffers
with Lambrini Girls
The Granada
Tuesday, July 30

Sometimes, you wonder: “Is this show gonna be as good as I hoped? Have I hyped myself up too much for the last three years, waiting to see this band and watching every live clip I could on YouTube?” and sometimes, you walk out the door shrugging and saying something the next morning like, “Yeah, it was a good time.”

Others, though? Other shows you walk out dragging your jaw on the floor behind you, gesturing vaguely as you try to return to earth after having gotten blown clean out of the atmosphere.

Amyl and the Sniffers are that band. Just from a professional standpoint, shooting photos of this band was almost too easy. Just stage presence for fucking daaaaaays, coupled with musicianship that’s absolutely lockstep tight. Like, not “playing to a click” tight, but more the ability to effortlessly throw out riffs, high kicks, and an insistent and relentless low end as though they’re not even trying.

But they were trying, as demonstrated via their interaction with the audience. Maybe it wasn’t quite as much as Lambrini Girls (more on that later), but sending songs out to the women, trans, and non-binary folks in the audience, saying how much they appreciated the warm response on their first visit to Lawrence, and just generally looking as though they were having the time of their lives made this feel like a basement show on a larger scale. The audience thrashed and roiled, with the occasional person popping out to one side or the other of the pit, dripping sweat and breathing hard, looking as though they’d just been through the wringer.

The crowd. // photo by Nick Spacek

Amyl and the Sniffers saw the screaming front row who knew every single word and played to them, while also rocking hard enough for those in the balcony to feel like they weren’t left out. Their second song in, Comfort to Me‘s “Freaks to the Front,” might as well have been a clarion call to pack in as tightly as possible. “Hertz” was a total dance party, the riff to “Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled)” is the best thing AC/DC’s Malcolm Young never wrote, and if I thought I blew my voice out last week at Be Your Own Pet, it’s even more worse the wear now.

“It’s Tuesday night. What are you cunts doing here?” Getting our faces rocked the fuck off. Thank for bringing it all the way from Australia. It was worth the wait.

Lambrini Girls. // photo by Nick Spacek

Openers Lambrini Girls hail from the UK and they make no bones about the fact they are a political band. Within their first two songs, vocalist and guitarist Phoebe Lundy went into the crowd twice for extended periods, with “Help Me I’m Gay” being a reason to ask various audience members if they were gay superstars, and third song “God and Country” started with a led chant of “Free Palestine.” During their first song, they managed to get the entire lower level to sit down with them while they explained just what they planned to do over the next 45 minutes.

It’s the sort of thing you get used to at basement shows with bands selling hand-stenciled canvas back patches, not a sold-out Granada and it was fucking awesome. They paused a song halfway through when someone ate it in the pit to make sure they were okay. It was uncompromisingly in-your-face community building and the crowd loved Lambrini Girls for it.

All photos by Nick Spacek

Amyl and the Sniffers

Amyl and the Sniffers setlist
Balaclava Lover Boogie
Freaks to the Front
Security
Capital
Got You
No More Tears
Shake Ya
Maggot
Choices
Snakes
Knifey
Control
Facts
Starfire 500
Guided by Angels
I’m Not a Loser
Hertz
Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled)
—
U Should Not Be Doing That
GFY