Singer and guitarist Sarah Smith was the most energetic person in the Observatory when her band The Joys played to a less-then-impressive crowd Oct. 19. The lack of people watching didn’t discourage the charismatic singer and her band though.

 The few people who were in the Observatory to see The Joys were just as energetic as Smith who, during as well as after songs, wandered into the crowd to get them going. “Its like, 4:30 in the afternoon and you’re out here rocking. That means a lot to us,” Smith said to the audience.

 Through their hour set, the band played covers ranging from Jimi Hendrix’ Voodoo Child and Green Day’s Longview to Rock ‘n’ Roll Part 2 by Gary Glitter (complete with the syncopated audience “hey”). Smith said the reason for most of the covers they perform is to not only show their diversity as a band, but to showcase their influences. “We really love these bands.

 We take influence from a lot of stuff and it shows in what we play,” said Smith. There is a bigger reason for the well-chosen covers. Smith said the reason they do those songs is to get their name out and introduce people to her band. “Nobody knows who we are, so we like to throw in a medley of stuff people would hear on the radio.

Help them get comfortable with who they are seeing and maybe they’ll come see us again,” said Smith. People could soon become familiar with the music of The Joys as just recently, their new song ‘Do I’ was picked up for the soundtrack of the upcoming film Cake with Heather Graham. “It was really exciting. Our manager just sent around some of our music and someone heard Do I and liked it enough to put it on the soundtrack,” said Smith.

 Despite the fact The Joys were supposed to be supporting Dead Celebrity Status, they have no problem being the headliners, explained Smith. “We’re usually the headlining band, so we’re used to it. It sucks that Dead Celebrity Status had to cancel though, we really like those guys.” said Smith.

Even with the news that Dead Celebrity Status were dropped from the bill, The Joys still drew a small but respectable crowd. “We always get a really great response to our music,” said Smith. “We’ve sold 10,000 CDs without radio play, without a music video or anything. It’s all just word of mouth. That makes us really proud to be doing this full-time.”