On February 14, 2023, WUTC's Haley Solomon spoke to Josh and Shawn of STRFKR ahead of their performance at The Signal on February 16th. They spoke about their writing process, the Vault series of demos they released in 2017, and the kind of added elements they tend to bring to their live stage performance.
STRFKR's show at The Signal was one of the last to be hosted in the Chestnut Street building, as they will soon be moving to the former Chattanooga Choo Choo Convention Center at 21 Choo Choo Ave. On that Thursday night, Chattanoogans waited in the sprinkling rain to get into the show, and promptly at 9 pm, the members of STRFKR took the stage - all clad in identical long black tunics.
The set list was a pleasant mix of classic hits, such as 'Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second' and 'While I'm Alive', slower hidden gems off of the album 'Miracle Mile' which celebrates its 10-year anniversary this year, and the new engaging single 'Running Around.' Much to the crowd's delight, the band even tossed in an expertly executed cover of Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Want to Have Fun.'
The light show and projected visualizer videos accompanying each song were very clearly and intentionally crafted to match the mood and beat of every song individually. There were stark red lights on black and white striped visualizers, yellow morphing images paired with a beautiful pastel rainbow of stage lights, and punches of pink strobes illuminating the drum kit from below. Every few songs a troupe of dancers would come to the front of the stage to lead the audience in coordinated claps, or side-to-side arm sways. Each time the dancers appeared they were wearing some new wild outfit - dancing with practiced ease in felt pink and blue moo-moos with a furry cat mask, army green pit crew uniforms with motorcycle helmets, and white full-body astronaut suits. The dancers even graced the crowd with a few crowd-surfing moments, one of which included a dancer crowd-surfing while holding the splits.
STRFKR has promised an upcoming album sometime later in 2023 or early 2024 and so you may be able to catch them touring again.
