Sparta w/ Geoff Rickly, Zeta 2023 Tour

Never started a thread in a forum before, so let me know if this isn’t the right way of going about it or if there is already a thread for this (I didn’t see one). This is mainly an appreciation/anticipation thread for this Sparta tour.

I’m going to see Sparta play at the Ottobar in Baltimore (Monday, July 31st, 2023) and I am pretty sure they are doing a kinda 21 year anniversary tour of their album Wiretap Scars. I hadn’t heard of them before this concert, so I started listening to that album and I have three ways of understanding any album within the first couple listens:

1. It’s just noticeably really good right off the bat. There may be some songs here and there that don’t quite work, or they may all work really well, but first and foremost: it is catchy or cool or fun in a way that has you leaving with multiple songs stuck in your head after the first listen.

2. It’s just noticeably not very good right off the bat. Things don’t really work well across the album, nothing really sticks in your head, or the subject matter is just really toxic and makes you uncomfortable.

3. My personal favorite: It plants a seed in your head and grows to be something really incredible over time. On your first listen you find the music interesting, and they all kinda work together in this neat way, but you can’t really explain why. And then you leave it to sit for a while, and realize there was something in there that scratches an itch you didn’t know you had, so you listen again and these super specific elements stand out: maybe it’s the timbre of the voice on a specific note, maybe it’s a choice of backing guitar melody that seems really bizarre but works so so well, maybe it’s just the song structure or a single chord in a verse that feels really good. These albums kinda invite you to obsess and dive super deep into every song looking for how they fit together.

Wiretap Scars is very much this third type of album for me. I can barely describe how it makes me feel, but it’s rapidly becoming one of my favorite albums I’ve listened to in a while. I’m super excited to see it live in such an intimate venue, and also to get to see Geoff Rickly as one of the openers. Is anyone else planning on going to any of Sparta’s shows? I’m really curious to see how good they are live.