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 This is a remarkable show for two reasons. First, all five Snarky Puppy horn players are present and accounted for: Chris, Maz, Justin, Jay, and Bob! This intensifies the horn line’s sound, especially on tunes like “Embossed,” “Bad Kids to the Back,” and “Tio Macaco.” Second, four special guests appear. That’s right: FOUR. In total, fifteen musicians performed onstage at the Orpheum Theatre, not including Roosevelt Collier and his band as the opening act. Other than the occasional featured duo or ensemble (Metropole Orkest, Väsen, Dafjen Music), there aren’t many times where the number of musicians in a Snarky PuppyContinue Reading

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After another three days off, the pups began the West Coast leg of the Immigrance tour. The first show was in Seattle, Washington, but this sadly didn’t get recorded. They then made their way south and down the coast to Portland Oregon for a packed show at the Roseland Theater; a relatively new building compared to some of the older buildings we saw Snarky play earlier, but this was not a particularly acoustic room. The pup’s did their best to adapt and played a sensitive set to not overload the room. This was the first professionally recorded show of 2019Continue Reading

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St. Paul, Minnesota! This was McQueen’s last show with the pups before Mark joined the crew in Washington. The Palace was quite a challenging room for the pup’s sound crew acoustically speaking. In particular, the bass was pretty boomy and the drums didn’t quite have the definition like usual, but the energy of this show and the songs they played was more than enjoyable. This show had lots of memorable moments and some fresh ideas from the new band; Zach Brock lifted the whole evening. My personal highlights would be ‘Flood,’ ‘Coven,’ ‘Tarova’ and ‘Ready Wednesday.’ Track-By-Track Flood – ThingsContinue Reading

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This was a really fun show with many amazing twists along the way. This recording features some amazing playing from Justin, Mike and Jamison in particular. The recording sounds very clean for what was probably a challenging room acoustically; the Orpheum in an old theatre with not much sound deadening and other acoustic treatments. This was the last Wisconsin show for the pups for 2019, and the last of this particular lineup. Shaun and Jamison were heading off back home after this one and Zach Brock and JT would join the rest of the team for the next show. MyContinue Reading

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After a nice 3 day break, Snarky Puppy returned to the stage in Maz’s hometown, Milwaukee. The historic Pabst Theater plays host. Apparently it’s the 4th oldest music venue in the United States; a nice bit of history there. This show would probably end up in a top 10 list of my favorite Snarky shows from 2019. Track-By-Track Coven – Things begin gently with McQueen’s beautiful tune Coven. McQueen adds a stronger than usual drone with his fuzz and E-bow alongside the opening horn riff. The main melody features some really tasteful organ and synth comping from Bobby and Justin.Continue Reading

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 This concert is entertaining not only because of the music, but also the banter! Michael League makes some references to the hit TV series Game of Thrones throughout the night (which was being broadcast nationwide at the same time as this concert), and the keyboardists get caught up in some trash-talking about barbeque skills. You can tell that the band is relaxed and enjoying the atmosphere of the venue. Whenever that happens, it revs up both the crowd and the band…which makes for an unforgettable show! My recording of this show has some slight mixing issues on a few songs,Continue Reading

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Following on from Indianapolis, Snarky Puppy arrived in Chicago to play a sold-out show at the quaint Riviera theatre. The Riviera was built over 100 years ago and originally started out as a movie theatre, so it has had to be adapted to suit live music. That being said, this recording still sounds really good and definitely showcases how skilled Snarky’s sound crew are. This setlist shares many similarities with the previous shows like ‘Thing of Gold,’ ‘Xavi’ and ‘Ready Wednesday.’ However, like usual things were shaken up. Track-By-Track Even Us – Things ease in with the new favourite opener,Continue Reading

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Continuing on from the last recap, the following evening, May the 17th saw Snarky Puppy play the Vogue. The Vogue was one of the smaller venues the pups played during the Immigrance tour. The nightclub has wonderfully tuned acoustics and this particular Live Snarky album has one of the cleanest mixes I’ve ever heard from a live album of this nature. The setting was intimate allowing the fans to really connect with the band, so not only is this a great sounding album, it also feels amazing too. The energy the band and audience were putting out kept growing asContinue Reading

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It’s been a while since the last LiveSnarky recap, but I’m hoping this will become the first of many new show reviews. FunkCity.net writer Doug Chew and myself have decided to review every show from Live Snarky on the 2 year anniversary of the show. As of today/tonight 2 years ago, Snarky Puppy performed in Cleveland, Ohio at the beautiful Masonic Auditorium; a lively and very acoustic room for the second part of the seven-month long Immigrance tour. The pups played lots of Immigrance tunes and a few of the hits, and were joined by special guests Weedie Braimah andContinue Reading

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As a new contributor to FunkCity.net, I eagerly look forward to writing reviews of Snarky Puppy concerts from 2019.  I plan to release reviews on the 2-year anniversary of the show I’m writing about.  We’ll kick things off with the final show of the Pacific leg of the Immigrance tour.  After traveling to Japan and New Zealand, Snarky Puppy arrived in Australia for a handful of concerts at the Byron Bay Blues Fest, the Enmore Theatre in Sydney, and Melbourne’s Forum.  During this show, Michael League praised the local music scene and gave a shout-out to Perrin Moss of HiatusContinue Reading