Show Review - Snarky Puppy 9/29/23 Breckenridge, CO
Snarky Puppy’s Empire Central fall tour arrived in Colorado last night for the first of three shows in the Centennial State. A beautiful early fall day in Breckenridge hosted the Grammy-winning collective as they set up shop in the Riverwalk Center, a venue formerly open-air that had a roof built on top a number of years ago.
The eleven-piece band absolutely brought the house down with their two-hour set, mixing mostly songs from their most recent album Empire Central with a few older cuts as their infectious and joyous energy influenced the show.
Opening act Nate Wood absolutely blew minds with his “fOUR” project – a one-man band with the man himself playing simultaneous drums, guitar, keyboards, and sometimes bass. In his words, “the project got its name from my goal of getting my four limbs to do as much as possible at the same time.” Mixing crazy time signatures and influences from across the musical spectrum, Wood’s 45-minute set was engaging and something I am looking forward to seeing more of through the rest of this weekend.
Snarky Puppy took the stage just after 8:30 and opened up the staccato intro to “East Bay.” Some brief technical difficulties with the Rhodes’ sustain pedal led to a slightly extended middle “interlude,” where bassist and bandleader Michael League sprinkled percussive textures on top of deep Minimoog bass sounds from keyboardist Bobby Sparks. Saxophonist Chris Bullock took the solo in the breezy outro of the song with a thick coating of effects before the song wrapped up.
Guitarist Mark Lettieri pounded out the rollicking intro to “Coney Bear,” which saw the three keyboardists demonstrate how effective a layered approach can be with Sparks on organ, Justin Stanton on piano, and Bill Laurance on Rhodes. Trumpeter Mike “Maz” Maher growled into a nasty solo on the tune, moving from effects to clean and back again as drummer Nikki Glaspie held the deep pocket together with League.
Immigrance cut “Xavi” saw the band loosen up among some rare flubs before Lettieri really let loose on the song’s funky first solo. League was unwilling to let the section end and had the guitarist take it for much longer than normal before cueing the band to the next solo, where keyboardist Bill Laurance attacked the off-kilter groove on Moog synthesizer. In lieu of where a big crowd-participation moment happened through all the 2019 versions of this song, percussionist Keita Ogawa was given the spotlight for an intense solo, his only spotlight of the night. The song concluded with an exuberant Rhodes solo from Stanton.
League and Stanton began the familiar circular riff to the Sparks-penned “Take It!” next as Glaspie hit into the charging funk riffs. Trumpeter Jay Jennings went in on the first solo, playing with aggression and purpose to the point that it almost seemed as though he had a distortion effect applied. Sparks unleashed a wild whammy clavinet solo for “the big one,” as the rest of the band dropped out to give him a spotlight on the unique instrument.
“We’re now going to play a song written by a member of the band who is not here,” said League before jumping into the oddly-timed intro of “Honiara.” The bassist himself took the first solo on the song, an increasingly common phenomenon that is out of character for him yet extremely welcome. This solo was full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and was full of the bandleader’s distinct and bouncy style. Saxophonist (and birthday boy) Bob Reynolds coasted to the finish atop a layered bed of keyboards and other horns, bringing his smooth-as-silk tone to the blissful motif.
Stanton jumped right into the funky intro to “Mean Green” as Glaspie slowed it right down into a deep, deep pocket with lots of room for exploration. While many solo sections of this song have featured effected horns or whammy clavinet, tonight’s version flipped the expectations on their head as Maz opted for a clean and gentle vibe that drastically altered the way the rest of the band was approaching their playing underneath him. This was one of the few Empire Central songs I had yet to experience live and thus was VERY excited for it!
Lettieri was given centre stage next for a lengthy intro to “RL’s.” Leaning heavily into the blues motif, the guitarist grooved alone with his eyes closed before hitting the powerful opening riff of the song. His solo in the first section was equally as fierce, a great contrast to the B section which was taken by Bullock. The shuffle dropped away as the saxophonist took advantage of the space for one of his trademark dissonant solos. Sparks took the ripping outro as he is wont to do, though instead of whammy clav opted to hose down the crowd with waves upon waves of Hammond B3.
League paused after the explosive finish to shout out Glaspie and prompted her to “do an intro” to the next song, “Pineapple.” Jennings nimbly darted through the first solo but the real treat was the solo trading between Stanton and Laurance that came after. A common choice for the second part of this tune, last night’s started as many others have before with Laurance on piano and Stanton on Prophet. The energy and intensity began to rise as the two went back and forth, with the latter eventually switching to Rhodes. League egged the two on further and further, building to over three minutes of intense soloing, both keyboardists trying to one-up the other in a friendly competition of crazy playing. Once the song ended with a wild drum break from Glaspie, the two friends hugged and laughed – probably my favourite moment of the entire night.
“Sleeper” was chosen as the set closer, and Stanton’s dreamy Rhodes chords washed out over the crowd as Sparks set up the vibe on Moog before diving into the emotional and deep build of the song. League introduced the band during the song’s midsection break and took the opportunity to highlight Reynolds’ birthday with a cake and a challenge – the saxophonist would take a rare solo on the normally keyboard-led tune and then have to finish his cake before the end. Equipped with a “birthday sasquatch” hat, he was more than up to the task and beautifully built back into the song’s euphoric ending peak – and went around the stage delivering pieces of cake into every other band member’s mouth while Sparks tore up a whammy clav solo. There was joy and excitement on every person’s face as they left the stage after an incredible set.
“What About Me?” was tapped for the encore – and you’d never know that Glaspie has only been playing this song for a couple of weeks. She set Lettieri up with a thick, slow-burn groove for his solo that he drove directly into grimy rock mode with a series of distorted power chords. League and Sparks added some Moog bass in (sharing the latter’s instrument) before the guitarist ripped up the vamp. Glaspie sent us off into the night by absolutely decimating the ending drum solo.
While last night may have been the sloppiest Snarky Puppy show I’ve seen to date, it was undoubtedly the most fun and energetic – and I cannot wait to see what they do for the next two nights in Denver and Boulder!