Snowden – Tuesday, March 16, The Earl, Atlanta
By Rob Jones
Full disclosure: I have known Jordan Jeffares and his manager/life-coach/brother Preston for five years. That being said, in the interest of honesty, comedy and journalistic integrity, I will not ignore the incident that caused Jordan to drink Stoli from the bottle for the second half of the set.
Snowden live at The Earl (photo Rob Jones)
On Tuesday, March 16, Snowden returned to Atlanta with a performance at The Earl launching their freshly releasedpay-what-you-want EP, Slow Soft Syrup to a gang of home-town fans, foaming at the mouth in anticipation of the band’s first live performance since July of last year.
After releasing their full-length debut, Anti-Anti, three and a half years ago – only to watch Jade Tree Records fold without ever really giving the album the press it deserved – Snowden has been very protective of it’s new material before finally deciding to self-release the new EP Slow Soft Syrup.
With the Radiohead comparisons fresh in my mind, I wondered how Snowden would approach the new material in a live setting. Much like the famous Englishmen, Snowden created an extremely complicated set of songs on Slow Soft Syrup – the type that need good headphones and a dark room to truly enjoy.
Couple this with the bands composer/writer/lead-singer, Jordan Jeffares, moving to Brooklyn late last year, and it definitely leads to an intriguing possibility of catastrophe on stage.
While the band had been furiously practicing for a few days prior to the show, there is only so much that can be done in such a short amount of time, and the rust reared it’s ugly head just a few songs into the set.
After about a minute of the “older” new song “Lemon Peel” the band had disconnected. What could have been the end of their set (and what would have been for a more established band with an ego to match) turned into proof as to why you should never miss this band live.
Realizing they couldn’t get back in sync, the band cut the song off. After Jeffares admitted the little recent practice time they restarted the song. For the rest of the set they were even more focused than before.
The show acted as a metaphor for the last few years in the band’s life: a solid introduction, followed by a hiccup that would have spelled doom for other acts, and just like the show, Snowden has emerged sharper and more powerful with the new EP.
Continuing on, and playing even more songs for the first time, the band surprised those of us familiar with the tracks off Slow Soft Syrup.
With Jeffares sipping on Stoli between every other song to help shake off the early mishap, the band shrugged off the Radiohead comparisons I previously contemplated. If you’ve never seen Radiohead live it’s certainly a treat, but the show leaves something to be desired, as the obviously simplified songs feel empty compared to the album versions.
Snowden, on the other hand, sometimes sounded almost like a cover band of themselves, re-working songs which would be unplayable in any live setting to make them sound complete even though played by only four people. Those of us in attendance even talked of our hope for a live album of the newer tracks after hearing the new spin the band used.
After playing highlights off of Anti-Anti like “Black Eyes” and “Between the Rent and Me”, Snowden closed with their Love and Rockets cover “No Words, No More” from the recent tribute album New Tales to Tell.
The show left me thinking the same two questions: When are they playing live again? And when does the new album come out?
I hope the answer to both of those questions is “soon”.
