Snarky Puppy @ Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide 21/5/2025
If you are a music aficionado and in the know about Texas music collective Snarky Puppy you would have been all over tickets to their show here in Adelaide, which to no surprise had been sold out for ages. Clearly, with this band there is no rule book or strict plan in play of what they should be rather their “loose” format allows for a plethora of pathways to take their music which makes the live experience all the more unique.
Promoted as jazz fusion, it is a label that the band don’t fully identify with as band leader Michael League has pointed out that their inspiration is drawn from other genres including, rock, classic soul, modern gospel, rhythm and blues world music, funk as well as jazz. Having experienced the show they definitely defy all the labels and will continue to do so.
It was a full house at Hindley Street Music Hall and I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this collective who individually are rockstars in their own right. When they started playing it was easy to start thinking along the lines of Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis in that golden era of the late 60s and early 70s. That said there was definitely something captivating and quite mesmerising about their music. Their fans were attentive and engrossed in the performance and really could not get enough of it. It would be disingenuous to say they came, they played their unique brand of jazz fusion and left as there is far more to it when you peel back the layers.
This tour was very much focused celebrating ten years of their iconic album We Like It Here and the set list reflected that with almost the entire album being played albeit not in track order adding to the randomness of the show. Band founder and leader rallies the troops keeping things moving but allowing each of his nine band members to shine in their right letting elite musicianship shine yet remain true to the Snarky Puppy sound. Opening with the upbeat Keep It On Your Mind was followed by another off Empire Central in Bet.
The crowd were in awe and transfixed and from a non-muso it was quite clear that as the show moved along it became more complex with so many intricate parts but it looked like they were talking another language through their music. Drummers Nikki Glaspie and Marcelo Woloski are elite and definitely make the band walk five foot taller and keyboardist Bobby Sparks II is able to was incredible to watch. League apologised for taking so long to get back to Adelaide, so long ago he was reminded by way of a photo of lighting tech Jaspar who meet him when he was a lot younger. Adding that new music is on the way, they wanted to avoid turning in to a cover band “of ourselves”.
There were some absolutely stellar moments with set highlights including Kite, Sleeper, What About Me? and Shofukan. Time literally did fly by and the band returned for an encore which was preceded by League saying he thought “we cheated you out of twelve years of music, next time we’ll play for four and half hours, lock the doors, it will be that long you’ll hate it!” The story behind show closer Lingus was an interesting conceived on a tough Aer Lingus flight giving fans one last chance to enjoy the controlled chaos. It was great to finally be able to say I saw Snarky Puppy live rather than through a YouTube clip.
Live Review By Rob Lyon