Still Woozy @ The Showbox SoDo

All Photographs by Shannon Lubetich

With 2022 reaching the end of its first quarter, the live music scene is stretching its wings after slowly testing the post-vaccine waters of fall 2021. Artists that released albums during the height of pandemic restrictions are finally able to celebrate and share them with fans face to face. Sven Gamsky, otherwise known as the driving force behind Still Woozy, has embarked on an international tour to do just that. If This Isn’t Nice, I Don’t Know What Is is the debut album under the Still Woozy moniker, a culmination of the band’s sound up until that point, a series of psychedelic infused indie pop songs akin to How to Be a Human Being/Zaba era Glass Animals.

Still Woozy brought their tour to Seattle for two nights at the Showbox SoDo, a large warehouse like venue in the fringe of both the Stadium and Industrial neighborhoods south of the city. At 7pm sharp on Thursday March 3rd, there was a massive line to the end of the block to get in as doors opened, with a largely early 20s demographic making up the core of attendees. As people filed in and got settled into their spots for the show, there was a noticeable gradient in both density and age depending on how far away from the stage one was. As you get closer, the crowd gets both younger and compact, while the older (aka older than 25) crowd were more spaced out toward the back.

The crowd at the Showbox SoDo

Los Angeles based Wallice, the project of Wallice Hana Watanabe, kicked off the evening with her and her band’s compelling brand of indie rock. She and her three bandmates rolled out on stage and launched right into “Off the Rails” from the 2021 E.P. of the same name. Wallice’s music fits right alongside other contemporary indie artists such as Snail Mail, Day Wave, and Soccer Mommy. With sunny guitars provided by Wallice’s boyfriend Callaghan Kevany and Wallice’s crisp vocals, it’s not hard to imagine listening to their music while driving down Fairfax Ave in Los Angeles on a sunny spring day.

The band cruised through most of the songs in Wallice’s catalogue, including some new cuts from a forthcoming E.P. Their energy and chemistry was infections and the crowd was bopping along with them throughout the entirety of their 40 minute set. About halfway through, Wallice and co paid homage to Seattle great Nirvana by playing “Heart Shaped Box” despite them feeling it was a bit “on the nose”. Honestly after a lively performance of the Nirvana classic, the band’s dynamism and willingness to move around the stage increased after being somewhat anchored to their positions in the first half of the set.

From there, performances of viral hits “23”, “Punching Bag”, and new one “John Wayne” really helped get the crowd warmed up for eventual headliner Still Woozy. Before closing off their set, they made sure to introduce everyone in the band and thank Still Woozy for bringing them along for the ride, even asking the crowd to provide their “horniest ‘Thanks Daddy Woozy'” cheer.

At 9:15pm, the familiar guitars and samples of “Window” ignited the headlining set, with Sven bringing boundless energy to the stage. Singing and dancing from each end of the stage, the high tempo performance rarely let up during the hour long set. After a bouncy “Rocky” and dance inducing “Get By”, a large banner dropped revealing the Still Woozy logo.

The crowd’s love for Still Woozy and their music was evident from the start, as the crowd’s voice can be heard singing along to nearly every song and dancing with an energy that matched those on stage. It was palpable how much the band was feeding off this energy, as it was hard to recall a single moment where Sven wasn’t exhibiting Jim Carrey levels of animation in his movements while singing and dancing across the stage. About 4 or 5 songs in, he remarked that this had definitely been the “sweatiest” show to date, reinforced by the fact that he had already shed his north face jacket and there was a noticeable gleam off what skin was showing from his button up shirt.

The extra sweatiness did nothing to deter the band from having constant smiles and briskly moving through most of If This Isn’t Nice‘s songs as well as previous hits “Habit” and “Woof”. One of the few moments for a breather came during album highlight “Kenny”, where Sven pulled out an acoustic guitar and was the most still he was the entire show.

As the heat inside the venue and among the crowd became more apparent as right before the main set closing track “WTF”, the band stopped when someone in the crowd had passed out. Major respect to the band and the venue to turn on all the lights and make sure that everyone was attended to before proceeding with the show. It’s very heartening to see artists truly love their fans and encourage them to take care of each other. Once the passed out individual was safely removed from the main crowd, the band led into “WTF”, a more electronic number that allowed for both the drummer “Skinny Pete” and bassist “Tiny” to get from behind their instruments and have a dance party. Eventually, Wallice and her bandmates joined the fun and got on stage to help close out the song and bring a moment of extra unbridled joy to the night.

After briefly leaving the stage and returning to chants to “one more song!”, Sven and company closed out the evening, for real this time, with their biggest hit to date, “Goodie Bag”.

Setlist According to Setlist.fm:

1. Window
2. Rocky
3. Get By
4. Lava
5. Wolfcat
6. Woopie
7. Woof
8. Cooks
9. Get Down
10. Drake
11. Lucy
12. BS
13. That’s Life
14. Kenny
15. Foolsong
16. Habit
17. WTF
18. Goodie Bag