“Freaks to the Front!”
Amyl and the Sniffers Destroy Hollywood
It’s been a good goddamn while since I’ve had any time to pursue my love for concert photography. Between my day job eating up my weekends and evenings and unresponsive publicists/promoters, it’s been a rather tough time to get the camera out of the bag and catch those thrilling performance moments to share with everyone. So, not only was it a delight to be able to catch Amyl and the Sniffers, a band I’ve been following for a few years, for the first time at The Vermont Hollywood, a venue I’d never been to before, but to have my camera in hand for the evening was downright uplifting.
The Vermont Hollywood is somewhat innocuously placed on N Vermont Ave, just south of Santa Monica Blvd, between a gas station and a strip mall, but don’t be fooled; the hall is deep from the entrance, and you can get a glass of beer for 10 bucks, which is a damned steal considering how expensive all the prices have gotten following Live Nation’s takeovers of most of the clubs in town. So we’re already off to a good start, and the venue is starting to fill up when Austin, TXs, all-woman quartet Die Spitz (pronounced Die, as in death) takes to the stage.
These ladies take no quarter, and while upon first entry to the platform, they seem a little shy and nervous, upon the first chord, they immediately blast into a blistering hard rock set that brings to mind what a baby of Bikini Kill and L7 might be. They shred, they move, they engage, and their enthusiasm is utterly infectious. Their album, Teeth, was released, as of this writing, just one month ago, and it is every bit as vital as their performance. I look forward to seeing more of them in the coming years.
This tour stop is something of an oddity for Amyl and the Sniffers as they recently were in Los Angeles last year for Primavera Sound Los Angeles just last September. They wedged in the one US date after playing shows and festivals in Mexico before heading back home for a few dates in Australia, but damn if it wasn’t a welcome experience. By the time they took the stage, the Vermont was absolutely jam-packed, and I gotta say, it’s been a long while since I’ve been around such a vibrant and fun crowd. Folks of all ages were present, and I struck up a conversation with numerous concertgoers about bands and music of all sorts of styles. Of course, all conversations stopped when the band walked on and launched into “Control,” a rip-roaring pubnk (pub/punk) rock song about, you guessed it, being in control.
This band is unstoppable, and throughout the night, they played an array of older tunes mixed in with tracks from the more recently released Comfort to Me album. Amy’s energy is infectious. She’s always moving, dancing, and singing, with wide smiles, fiery eyes, and snarling punk rock intensity. Four songs into the set, she was in the barricade getting up close and personal with the front of the crowd sharing the mic for the chorus call back of the rowdy love song “Got You.”
By the time the show came to a close, following “Hertz” off Comfort to Me, the lights came up to a yodeling song which prompted a large portion of the crowd to continue dancing around together all the way to the ending as others slowly filtered out. I found myself slowly looking around with probably one of the biggest smiles of my life on my face. It’s not often that one feels completely content after a concert. We always want one more, and then one more, and then one more, even though we know it’s impossible. Amyl and the Sniffers not only delivered a raucously fun and rowdy set, they delivered that thing that few bands can, closure.
