Sprints' rise in 2024 has seen them go from The White Hotel across the border in Salford to selling out New Century a couple of months in advance, a four-fold increase in audience size armed with just their debut album Letter To Self to their name. Over the course of eighty minutes they delivered a set taken from the record with a fascinating insight into new material that suggests that trajectory isn't going to slow down any time soon.
It's three years since we first saw Sprints in a hot, sweaty and messy Castle Hotel. Back then you could tell they had the songs and the potential. Fast forward through more sweaty shows in the basement of Yes and the chaos of The White Hotel and here they are, a band armed and ready to take on the academies and beyond in 2025 as they move from album one into that traditionally difficult second album where an audience still hankers for that first hit of the debut. Sprints have already demonstrated with recent single Feast and confirmed with new material like opener To The Bone and Something's Gonna Happen, both with a handful of plays to their name, that they're more than up to taking on the challenge.
Still with a message to impart - referencing Palestine and trans rights - and offering a novel solution with Karla telling the crowd to send any phobes her way "and I'll knock them the fuck out", Sprints have channeled an anger and outsider viewpoint into some of the most powerful modern rock music. They've also ensured that they're not simply noise and foot down on the accelerator pedal. Opener To The Bone is tender and raw and Letter To Self's more reflective moments work as a pause for breath amongst the energy of the rest of the set.
They take their set finale The Fix and give it an interesting makeover at the start before letting loose and sending the expanding mosh and circle pit further outwards into the more curious bystanders on the fringes of the crowd before Karla herself jumps down off the stage that's full of both support acts Adore and Chalk, and throws herself horizontally over the front rows to bring their connection closer to the audience.
Older songs like The Cheek have grown up from their days in the grassroots venues and feel like they've always existed in spaces like this. The magnificent Delia Smith that has thirteen hundred screaming "who wants to be special anyway, me fucking me" at the tops of their communal voices in a moment of unity where Sprints themselves become part of us and break down the band / audience barrier completely. Even Karla's declaration of her and drummer Jack's love of Manchester United only has a few playful boos from the audience as she swiftly declares Manchester to be like a second home to them.
Magnificently unashamed of who they are and where they've come from, Sprints are a joy to behold, their concerts are a communal celebration, a coming together to both fiercely stand up for what you believe in, but also to let loose and throw off the shackles.
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