Starting their 19 show tour in South Florida may have been a big let down for Smallpools and their fans.
Fort Lauderdale, October 8th – Preforming at the Culture Room in Ft. Lauderdale Smallpools, an indie pop band, came with Phoebe Ryan and MachineHeart to start The American Love Tour. Most commonly known for their songs, “Dreaming”, “Over & Over”, and my personal favorite “Mason Jar”, the band wasn’t even able to fill a good portion of the already small venue.
Quite depressing for the first show of their tour.
This however did not affect the band’s energy. Still very animated, they preformed. But Sean Scanlon, lead vocalist, still let out a slightly lower vibe then the rest.
Sean, clearly having an issue with people who weren’t his official photographers recording the show, would generally look away from areas that had phones up. Later in the show he even asked for a time out on technology and for everyone to be in the moment and listen for one song. The one time he noticeably condoned the use was when he asked for everyone to turn on his or her flashlight to create the starry night illusion. Which ended up turning out a little weak considering the show wasn’t very full, but a good attempt never the less.
Why did they even have that low of a fan turn out? They’re a great band, with great music, and a fairly decent fan base. Tickets where cheap too! Only 25 dollars the day of the show, including all the absurd Ticketmaster fees (27 if bought online).
The only things I can think of for the small turn out is low marketing and bad date choice. For a band that caters to a 15-25 year old crowd a Thursday is not a good day. There is work and/or school, and whether you are living with your parents and they don’t let you go, or if you’re living alone, that’s still not generally a financially stable age to be able to miss those.
Too bad though. Because those fans missed out on a great show.
Starting the night with “Over & Over”, their 2nd most popular song, Sean came out with a shiny red costume tux top. Probably taking in a little from the eccentric style from Tyler Glenn, lead vocalist of Neon Trees, whom he had toured with as an intro band for their Pop Psychology Tour. If you went to see Neon Trees in 2014 at Revolution Live (also in Fort Lauderdale) you unknowingly, or knowingly, saw Smallpools!
A few songs into the set Smallpools played “Mason Jar”, their 3rd top song, which was introduced as “a song written about a girl who is feeling like she is in a fishbowl”. Leaving “Dreaming”, their number one top ranked song, for the last song in the encore.
Some noticeably fun moments for the crowd was when Sean walked down into the pit and sang along side his fans, and during “Killer Whales” when the band unleashed giant fill-up killer whales into the pit for people to keep tossing around like beach balls. The great thing about such a small show is that no matter where you were, if you really wanted to touch Sean when he came down, you could have got there with a little effort.
Smallpools did a truly wonderful job at preforming their 14-song set but what was really eye catching, and I mean EYE catching, was their lights. This was undoubtedly one of the best light shows I have ever seen. Not a single song was a bore to the eyes, or the ears for that matter. They used several different color soft lights and a few beams to intensified the mood of their songs. From a colorful bliss to intense edginess, their lights did the trick. They seemed to prefer their rainbow looking room, that used all the colors, but in songs like “Mason Jar” the room went to a red orange color, and in their version of Lean On, a song originally by Major Lazer, they turned on strong white lights that created silhouettes of the band from my side of the stage.
Overall this was a great show, especially for the ticket price of 25 dollars. I would really like to see a show later in their tour with a bigger crowd to see if Sean really was a little disappointed with this crowd size or if he simply doesn’t tell each crowd that they are “the best crowd ever”. Regardless, Smallpools was a show worth seeing.
Upcoming concerts you may like similar to Smallpools…
The Wonder Years & Motion City Soundtrack @ Revolution Live 10/19
Matt And Kim @ Revolution Live 11/07
Written by Gabriela Barbieri
Photo by Stefan Bojilov
