Culture
Sneakthief embarks on long postponed tour March 25
By: Emily Votaw
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A show at The Union in Athens on Friday, March 25 will mark the beginning of a Sneakthief tour that was supposed to happen back in the spring of 2020.
“We tried our best to book a tour to replace our 2020 tour. Cuz we had a crazy tour booked in May of 2020 that we had to cancel that was a week or maybe even eight or nine days long,” said Daniel Palmer, vocalist and guitarist for the band.
We all know why the band’s 2020 tour was cancelled.
While the disruption caused by COVID-19 was pretty crummy for just about everyone, it’s safe to say that the overall pause on live music that went into effect in March 2020 had a particularly unpleasant impact on Sneakthief, who had been gaining considerable momentum just before the pandemic.
Back in the spring of 2020 Sneakthief had their first tour booked, they plans to record and release a new single — and Palmer was investing all of his time and energy into making the band a full-time job.
“I didn’t have a job, Sneakthief was my job. I was just full time bumming it up — trying to make music work. And then the pandemic hit and it just halted everything. We went from a hundred miles an hour to zero miles an hour really fast,” said Palmer.
Palmer recalled getting in touch with the venues lined up for the May 2020 tour and trying to get rebooked for August.
“I did that thinking that, at the time, surely this was going to be cleared up by then,” he said. “And it’s March 16 today (the day of the interview), so we just passed the two year mark on March 14, 2020, when it really went down. So we’re over two years into it by now. And the numbers are looking really good. But there’s a part of me — it’s trauma from 2020 — that kind of worries that something’s going to jump out and stop us again.”
Sneakthief’s drummer, Joe Fradette, keeps track of every show the band plays. He said the band played more shows in the first several months of 2020 than they did in all of 2021.
“So that first part of the year we were going full speed for that first two, three months.We played more shows in those two to three months than we did for the next whole year. Even though things started to open up again a little bit until 2021, we really got cut down to nothing after the pandemic,” said Fradette.
No one is the same person they were in March 2020, including Palmer.
“When we were getting ready to go on that tour in 2020, I was in my mid-early twenties — and now I’m in my mid-late twenties. So it’s like, I’m getting older. I know I’m getting older. Not to like say that I’ve gotten like so old that I can’t like run around and do the same things that I’ve done. Maybe saying I’ve ‘matured’ is the better way to say it. I’ve grown from like angsty pop folk punk to more of just a folk pop rock, if that makes sense.”
In late 2021, Sneakthief released their “Postcards” EP, signaling a shift in the band’s sound that mirrors Palmer’s description of growth from angsty folk punk to folk pop rock.
Sneakthief has just released a flexi-disc of the “Postcards” EP that is not only playable – they’re also the same shape as a postcard and just as mailable. In addition to the flexi-disc EP release, the band is excited to debut a variety of new merch, including mugs and shirts.
Find more information on Sneakthief’s long awaited tour at facebook.com/Sneakthief. The show at The Union on Friday, March 25 will also feature performances by no stars and Mezclado.