Live Report: SPRINTS' surprise album launch sees band battering January blues

I, like many people, first encountered Dublin garage punk band SPRINTS as a support act, and I was aware of what they could do with a crowd that wasn't their own. So when I heard that they were playing a surprise 120 ticket gig, which sold out in the space of 20 minutes, I knew was in for something special.

If SPRINTS could win over festival crowds and hype audiences up for mega live shows- what could they do when they returned to their first gig spot - Whelan's Upstairs? A dingy, all black room with red wall papered ceilings that had a palpable drip of condensation.

Acknowledging the full circle moment, a hoarse Karla Chubb spoke into the microphone: "We played our first ever live show here in this room four years ago, and who would've thought four years later we would have a top ten Irish album, a top 20 UK album and a lot more mental health problems." Which was naturally received with whoops, cheers and a solemn commitment from audience members to get streaming and buying the band's debut album: Letter to Self.

But who do you get to hype up the audience for one of the best hype bands in Dublin right now? Queue Fräulein, a face melting wall of sound from, to my shock, two people.

After opening with their track 'The Last Drop', front woman Joni Samuels asks: "Can I get more guitar and more vocal please and thanks?" – and I cannot begin to emphasise how much guitar and vocals there was in their set.

Closing with the heavy and punk-y track 'Big Cool' , Fräulein showed the audience how much noise a duo can really make, and left the crowd (and themselves I gather) nearly deaf!

SPRINTS waltzed on stage, briefly tuned up, walked off and then re-appeared for their grand entrance – and what an entrance it was! The band opened with what I believe to be a perfect album opener, 'Ticking', switching into their  latest single release 'Heavy'– starting strong and bass-y, and building up into the loud and existential choruses of 'Heavy'.

But it wasn't not all punk music and existential angst. SPRINTS are also massively good craic and funny, opening their track 'Cathedral' with the line "I love the catholic church" – inevitably, a mosh pit ensued.

However, in spite of SPRINTS' stellar performance, guitar-shredding and Karla Chubb giving every last wheezy breath to her singing, some in the audience were a bit lacklustre. Maybe it's because it is January: we've all drunk too much, eaten too much, spent too much and in turn, are ourselves spent. One half of the audience was ready to jump through fire for the band, and the rest were... a bit tame.

The group, who at this stage are veterans of crowd control, were unperturbed – and they soon had the entire crowd like putty in their capable hands, their biggest song 'Up and Comer' inducing the required head-banging and screaming that such a night calls for.

An audience member was cajoled onto the stage to sing a track, with a delighted Chubb proclaiming, with a big smile on her face: "This is a fucking dream, having an audience member up on stage." And then, self-satirically: "It's such a superstar moment!"

With a cavalcade of tour dates billed from the end of January to the end of May, taking the band through mainland Europe, the UK, Ireland and the US, and given the well deserved success already of their new album Letter to Self , there is strong sense that this is likely to be just the first of many superstar moments coming SPRINTS way in 2024. Watch this space!