No sign of punk’s stage warriors slowing down
Alongside headliners The Zutons, John Grant and Villagers, Dublinb and Sprints is an unmissable act at the Night And Day Festival next month. The new boutique music event takes place in the grounds of Clonalis House, Roscommon, on September 24 and 25.
You can still buy weekend and day tickets for the festival but they are selling fast. Soda Blonde, Orla Gartland, Junior Brother and a rare performance by Cathy Davey are among the other must-sees on the weekend of the autumn equinox.
Sprints play on the Saturday of the 5,000 capacity event. After seeing them in Dublin’s Workman’s Club back in May, I gushed that the Dublin punk-pop quartet had evolved into road-hardened stage warriors since I’d last seen them almost two years ago. There was a ferocity to their performance, particularly that of frontwoman Karla Chubb, which was utterly compelling. She sang in her trademark shouty style flailing at her Strat. Beside her, bassist Sam McCann presented a foil for Karla both vocally and by his stage presence. By contrast, Colm O’Reilly caressed his Telecaster, smiling serenely, incongruously. Jack Callan on drums is the rhythmic hammer that knocks in the nails at the back. The old hall became a mosh pit as the band blasted out fan favourites Manifesto, The Cheek and Modern Job even throwing in a raucous cover of Wet Leg’s Chaise Longue as an encore.
Since that memorable night they’ve played the Glastonbury Festival. The band only formed in late 2019 and Karla is amazed that they’ve performed at the legendary event so early in their career.
‘We probably should have been really professional but every two or three seconds we’d be saying, “Can you believe that we’re here? Can you believe that we’re here?”’ she says.
‘The day before we were going, our manager was setting up our car park pass to print out and that was where we began getting really nervous thinking we can’t believe this is happening.
‘We ended up playing twice, on the Saturday night and on the Sunday. Even then when we were walking to the stage we were saying, “Is this real?”’
Sprints were one of the bands who played at the Extra.ie Extra Sessions during lockdown at Dublin’s Wild Duck venue. The shows were broadcast on Extra. ie’s internet TV channel and gave bands a much-needed payday – while giving the rest of us a taste of live performance in those grim days of late summer 2020.
‘When we played the Extra Sessions all those years ago we were still a very new band at that stage,’ she says. ‘Since lockdown lifted it has been one exciting thing after another. We did our first UK tour in October 2021 and went back in February and played bigger venues… that we hadn’t played before and they were packed.
‘We are going back in October when we will play our biggest headliner in London to 500 people (at the Dome in Tufnell Park). In Ireland, we’re doing Night And Day, which is going to be great and we headline Whelan’s in October. We’ve gone from playing the Grand Social to playing Whelan’s in six months which is a bit nuts.’
Although Karla, the band’s main lyricist identifies in her own words as a ‘queer woman’, she says the concerns in her songs and the message the band expresses is inclusive and universal and why she thinks their audience is growing rapidly.
‘I think we deal in universal themes. We are inspired by our day-to-day lives in Dublin and by the difficulties we all face,’ she says. ‘In terms of sexuality, obviously I am so used to being referred to and being queer that is doesn’t really come into my head when I’m writing. I write honestly about my experiences in life and that just happens to be a part of it. Everybody is feeling the pressure of inflation and the lack of housing, higher rents and the higher cost of living. It feels like we’re being squeezed and squeezed but to what end? That frustration and anger has perhaps subconsciously come out in the newer tracks. Those struggles with the pressures of modern life and the pressures in society are relatable to people no matter who they are or where they live.’
■ Night And Day, Clonalis House, Roscommon, from September 2425. See nightandday.ie
‘Even as we walked to the stage at Glastonbury we were saying, “Is this real?”’
‘We deal in universal themes, relatable to all people no matter who they are’