Considering that ska has not had a major mainstream influence since the late 90s, ska tours still do remarkably well. So it is no surprise that Reel Big Fish‘ 20th anniversary tour was a packed event at Hartford’s Webster Theatre. What might be a surprise is the average age of the crowd. While the 21+ area had a good amount of people in it, the all ages section is where the majority of the crowd lay. Most kids I saw were in high school, dropped off by their parents on an unseasonably warm Sunday night for the show.
The crowd’s youthful energy was well on display for most of Reel Big Fish’ set. The crowd formed circle pits that even lead singer/guitarist, Aaron Barrett even commented on for their size as well as their “roundness.” The band fed off the crowd’s energy ripping through a set of classics from their catalog.
The majority of their set came from Turn the Radio Off with the set starting with “Everything Sucks” followed by “Trendy.” About a quarter of the set was from Why Do They Rock So Hard? with “I Want Your Girlfriend To Be My Girlfriend Too,” “Ban The Tube Top,” and “The Kids Don’t Like It” being notable additions. The rest of the set was made up of a smattering of tracks from Reel Big Fish’ less well received albums: Cheer Up!, We’re Not Happy ’til You’re Not Happy, and Monkeys for Nothin’ and the Chimps for Free.
Surprisingly the band closed the set with a song from one of those albums: Monkeys for Nothin’ and the Chimps for Free‘s “Another F.U. Song”. The band exited the stage to applause but stayed for merely a minute (if that) before returning for an encore. The encore started with the Bouncing Souls‘ “¡Olé!” followed by the classic “Sell Out” before closing with a cover of A-Ha‘s “Take on Me.”
There were not a lot of complaints spoken after the set. The twenty-plus song, hour-plus set left everyone happy. Considering it is the band’s 20th anniversary, they still show great energy and put on a fun, entertaining show.
MP3: Reel Big Fish “Sell Out”

As a fan of 80s alternative music, I have been lucky enough to see some of the biggest bands of the genre. I have seen R.E.M., Violent Femmes, Love and Rockets, and Pixies all grace the stage. However, Thursday night was my first time ever seeing They Might Be Giants. The legendary group seems to hit Connecticut every tour, yet somehow I have always missed them. With their new album, Join Us, garnering a fair amount of critical and commercial success, it seemed like the perfect time to catch the band.
Never having seen the band before, I was not sure exactly what to expect. What was delivered was a set list drawn mainly from two sources: the band’s greatest hits and their new album, Join Us. The band played 10 songs from Join Us which comprised almost one-third of their set. When a band has long and storied of a history as They Might Be Giants, to play so much of a new album always sets a weird mood. The vast majority of the crowd seemed to not know those particular songs.
So that leaves us with the other two-thirds of the set. The rest of the set relied heavily on track from Flood and Lincoln. The band played “Your Racist Friend” early on and got “Ana Ng” out of the way fairly early, within the first six songs. Seven songs later, they played “Birdhouse in Your Soul” as if they were trying to evenly disperse their most well-known songs instead of going out in flourish. Their ending flourish included playing “Don’t Let’s Start” to kick off their first encore which also included “Particle Man.” The band came out for a second encore which included closing with “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).”
But the set list is only a small part of They Might Be Giants’ show. The band’s live show is like watching a variety show. John Flansburgh acted as the host of the comedy portion of the show. He poked fun at his own seersucker jacket and the faux pas of wearing it after labor day. He, also, took the initiative to split the crowd in half, one half being humans and the others being apes to play “Battle For The Planet of the Apes.” Perhaps the oddest portion of the show was when both Johns took up sock puppets and projected a sock puppet TV show on the backdrop. I felt like a lot of the audience got lost during this portion of the program.
Whether the onstage antics were hit or miss, they provided some entertainment. I can not help but think that they also took away from the music. There is an old adage: less talk, more rock. The rock certainly got lost in a flurry of talk that went far beyond the normal in between song banter. As I exited the show, I heard one member of the crowd say “that was so weird” and I couldn’t help but agree. The band went on a 10pm but I could not help but feel like it was a children’s show.
MP3: They Might Be Giants “Can’t Keep Johnny Down”

Das Racist was the first group I saw at Governor’s Ball. Going on at 2:20 in the afternoon, the festival had clearly not yet filled up and people were sitting on blankets fairly close to the stage with little fear of getting stepped on or trampled. The group has made their living making abrasive yet humorous hip hop but their live show was all comedy. The group’s insouciance was apparent by their perceived drunkenness but the crowd was unsure what to make of them. This could be because it was a little hard to understand their slightly slurred rhymes and their lyrics are most of the joke.
It was also hard to concentrate on what the group was saying because of their outlandish slideshow playing behind them. A few of the more memorable images that were shown was an octopus holding the head of Osama Bin Laden, a scene from X-Men, and a fire monster. These images rarely had anything to do with the song but more just set the mood of the set which was total and utter ridiculous.
MP3: Das Racist “Puerto Rican Cousins”

Big Boi took the stage in the late afternoon on Governor’s Island. Characteristically late, it took an Atlanta Braves chant from the crowd to finally get Big Boi to emerge from backstage. Big Boi was joined on stage by a drummer, DJ Cut Master Swift (not to be confused with legendary UK DJ, Cutmaster Swift), and fellow Atlanta rapper, C-Bone.
Despite having an hour long set, Big Boi seemed to fly through his set. He kicked off the set with some classic Outkast including “B.O.B.”, “Git Up, Git Out”, “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik”, “Ms. Jackson”, “So Fresh, So Clean”, “Two Dope Boyz (In A Cadillac)”, “Elevators (Me & You)”, and “Rosa Parks.” After doing pretty much every classic Outkast joint any member of the crowd could yell out, Big Boi moved into his solo catalog.
His sampling of solo material included “The Way You Move” and “Ghetto Musick” from Speakerboxxx as well as “Follow Us”, “Shutterbugg”, “General Patton”, “Fo Yo Sorrows”, and “Shine Blockas”. Because C-Bone was there, Big Boi let him perform a song which noticeable no one in the crowd knew nor did many seem to care about; it was seemingly the only moment of the show where some of the crowd turned. Big Boi brought it all back together by then performing “Kryptonite” which featured C-Bone on it.
Before the end of the set, Big Boi invited female members of the crowd on stage to perform “Tangerine.” The largely white crowd on stage did not feature many women who could indeed “shake it like a tambourine” which was a little embarrassing for all involved. Big Boi then closed his set with “You Ain’t No DJ” which featured some impressive cutting from DJ Cut Master Swift.
MP3: Big Boi featuring Andre 3000 and Sleepy Brown “Looking for Ya”

Summer time in New Haven is interesting because most of the Yalies have gone home and only true New Havenites remain in the city. Because of this, weekday shows are usually pretty poorly attended. I was surprised to see Toad’s Place more than half full when Against Me! took the stage around 10pm.
I suppose it should not have been much of a surprise. In the 11 years since their debut EP, Against Me! has gone from a folk punk duo into one of the best selling punk bands in America. Their latest album, White Crosses reached number 34 on the Billboard200. Perhaps that’s why it was no surprise that the setlist was a little White Crosses heavy. In their hour and a half long set, the group blazed through tracks like “Because of the Shame”, “Rapid Decompression”, “High Pressure Low”, “White Crosses”, and “I Was a Teenage Anarchist.” A good portion of the crowd knew and loved the songs but there were a bunch of fans that clearly had not followed Against Me!’s major label catalog. For those old school fans, there was more than a respectable mix of songs from their first three albums including favorites like “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong”, “Reinventing Axl Rose”, “T.S.R.”, “Sink, Florida, Sink”, “Miami”, “From Her Lips To God’s Ears (The Energizer)”, and “Don’t Lose Touch.”
While that might seem like a long setlist, I can assure you that that is not even the half of it. Against Me! has the stage presence similar to the Ramones; they rarely speak while on stage and just seamlessly transition from one high energy song to another. This is both exciting and exhausting to watch. The boisterous crowd had to pick and choose when to rest because even relatively young fans could not quite keep up with the band’s energy.
When the band left the stage, I felt like they took an inordinately long amount of time before coming out for an encore. At first I thought it was because the crowd was not exactly chanting for more songs but then I realized it was probably because Tom Gable and the boys needed a little breather before coming out an finishing up the set. The encore was a brief four songs, finally closing with “We Laugh at Danger and Break All the Rules.”
MP3: Against Me! “Don’t Lose Touch (Live)”

B.O.M.B. Fest was this past weekend in Hartford, CT and I was lucky enough to attend. To recap, I present a top ten highlights in photos. Continue reading →

After an hour of driving around Allston trying to find parking, I finally made it to Brighton Music Hall at 10:55, a mere five minutes before Rival Schools was scheduled to take the stage. The club was fairly packed with a wide cast of characters. Some people were there in their old school Quicksand, Gorilla Biscuits, and Youth of Today gear to pay tribute to Rival Schools’ lead vocalist, Walter Schreifels who was a member of all those bands. Others in the crowd, donned Rival Schools’ shirts featuring the cover art from their 2001 debut album, United by Fate.
It had been nearly 8 years since the band was regularly active yet their fans seemed to have stuck with them. This was evident by the crowd’s reaction to the band. Rival Schools’ new album, Pedals will be released this Tuesday but that did not stop a good amount of the crowd from knowing the words of many of the new songs. The band started their set with the first single from Pedals, “Wring It Out.” The mid-tempo rocker is not the mood-setting opener that I expected from the band but the crowd seemed instantly engaged. Perhaps it was Walter Schreifels’ awkward dancing movements on stage or Evan Dando-doppelganger Cache Tolman on bass but there seemed to be an instant connection.
The band obviously felt the connection too. Schreifels was in rare form with his in-between song banter addressing everything from Charlie Sheen to screamed requests from the crowd for Gorilla Biscuit songs. The band even wandered from their set list several times to include quick attempts at Metallica covers, a ska versions of their own songs, and then combining the two into ska versions of Metallica songs.
However the deviations from the set list was not overly necessary. The list included the majority of United by Fate including “Everything Has Its Point”, “Good Things”, “Travel By Telephone”, “World Invitational”, and “The Switch”. The song that seemed to get the best reaction from the crowd was United by Fate‘s standout ballad “Undercovers On” while the crowd seemed shocked with the band’s choice to mix in album closer “Hooligans For Life” into the set. The group closed their actual set with “Used For Glue”.
The end of set was a little awkward with the band leaving the stage except for Schreifels who stayed on stage speaking to the crowd for about a minute before the rest of the band came back out to join him on the stage. Because Schreifels never left, it did not feel like an encore as much as it felt like the rest of the band needed to take a bathroom break and Schreifels volunteered to hold down the fort. The band played “My Echo” for an encore but Schreifels clearly enjoying the Boston crowd consulted with his band if they could possibly play any other songs. Schreifels introduced “we used to cover this song every time we were in Boston as Quicksand” and then played a cover of The Smiths‘ “How Soon Is Now?” The band stayed on just long enough to give each other high fives before waving to the crowd and exiting the stage.
The band managed to play just a little over an hour, just slightly longer than it took me to find a parking space. Despite that, I left show with no malice in my heart for Allston’s horrid parking situation; the things seeing a band at the height of their ability can do to a man.

MP3: Rival Schools “Undercovers On”

Hartford in the winter is cold. More so when the mounds of snow around you are measured in feet, often taller than short people, and covered with a solid layer of ice. The mostly teenage crowd inside The Webster Theater were ready for Escape The Fate who brought their Masquerade of Death tour to the city. And that meant lots of energy and plenty of heat.Long before the headliners got up on the stage the crowd was sweaty and shedding layers of clothing. I never expected to see so much skin when the weather is freezing but a long winter often requires something to get you through. For one night Escape the Fate was that thing.
It was no surprise that the roof almost came off the building when the band finally took the stage. They got right into performing starting with two songs in rapid succession from their 2010 self-titled album. “Choose Your Fate” and “City of Sin” got the crowd moving and lead singer Craig Mabbit made sure to interact with the crowd by way of shaking hands with crowd surfers who were being pulled off by security. Some fan threw a hat on stage and Mabbitt made sure to wear it for a bit before tossing it back.
Most of the concert was songs off the albums Escape The Fate and 2008′s This War is Ours. The band continued firing away with “10 Miles Wide”, “The Flood”, and “Issues” which was the first big pop from the crowd. “Zombie Dance” in particular got the mosh pit working and wouldn’t stop until the show was over.
Mabbitt took time to talk to the crowd to encourage getting involved in the arts, particularly music. He also told the youth not to give up especially when someone says that you can’t succeed. He followed that up with a stage dive. He was swallowed up but emerged unhurt and ready to commence the rocking once again.
At the end of the concert the band reached back to their first album, 2006′s Dying is Your Latest Fashion with crowd favorite “Situations”. Then, they left the stage without a word. The crowd kept calling for one more song and the band returned to oblige. Mabbitt thanked the other bands on tour and sent out a warm wish for the band’s bassist, Max Green, who is currently in rehab. He then dedicated the encore performance to the two things the song was written about. First, all the members of the armed forces. Second, video games such as Halo and Call of Duty.
Next, he asked the crowd to partake in the Wall of Death. If you’ve never experienced one you’ll have to. I won’t put it into words, but check out Escape The Fate live and they’ll fill you in. Then the band played “This War is Ours (The Guillotine 2)”. But they didn’t stop there. The encore consisted of the entire trilogy with “Guillotine” and “The Aftermath (g3)”.The band was impressed with the crowd in Connecticut saying they’d be glad to come back. I was impressed no one complained about the freezing temps. They are from Las Vegas. But most impressive was the quality of sound. I was unsure what to expect but the live performance sounded almost exactly as the albums. Particularly lead guitarist Bryan “Monte” Money. If anything, he was born to play guitar. It was the type of thing to make one forget about the blistering cold and just enjoy the fresh air once outside.
MP3: Escape the Fate “Situations”

Ska is one of those genres that many people consider dead. The genre has seen heydays in the late 1950s with bands like Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, in the late 1970s with bands like The Specials, and most recently in the 1990s with Reel Big Fish and Save Ferris. Since the 90s boom, ska has been a dormant genre at least in the mainstream but a booming underground ska scene still exists in certain areas of the country. Inexplicably, one of those areas is Connecticut; this is evident by the jam packed Less Than Jake show at Hartford’s Webster Theater.
Less Than Jake hit their commercial peak with 2003′s Anthem which reached number 45 on the Billboard 200, yet their following remains strong especially among ska fans from the mid-1990s. Less Than Jake’s 90s albums Pezcore, Losing Streak, and Hello Rockview are considered ska/punk essentials. The band is currently touring to support a rereleases of two of those three records in March.
Touring to support rereleases of their classic material meant that Less Than Jake played a set packed with classics. The set kicked off with “Shindo” from Losing Streak. The set contained “Automatic” from Losing Streak as well as “Last One Out of Liberty City”, “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads”, “Help Save the Youth of America from Exploding”, and “Scott Farcas Takes It on the Chin” from Hello Rockview.
The rest of the set was a mish-mash of tracks from the band’s five other albums and four EPs. The band played several selections off of last year’s TV/EP including covers of the The Animaniacs and Spongebob Squarepants theme songs. The set, of course, featured many tracks from the band’s biggest commercial success, Anthem. Selections from Anthem included “Look What Happened” and the band closed their main set with “Plastic Cup Politics”. The band’s three song encore included both “The Science of Selling Yourself Short” and “The Ghosts of Me and You” from Anthem.
While the set list was sure to delight both fans new and old, the big draw with Less Than Jake is their in-between song antics. The band pull a girl on stage with the hopes of having her stage dive. With the gap between the stage and the crowd, the band got a little nervous if the girl could actually make the jump so pudgy lead singer, Chris Demakes tried the jump first. He just barely made it into the crowd but definitely hit his shin on the metal barrier. He made sure to show the crowd the lump and bruise that formed on his shin as a result of this. The girl did end up trying the jump to much better success than Demakes.
During another part of the set, a girl in the front row was seen yawning. Demakes asked the girl to come on stage and then to “wake her up” had her compete in a push-up contest with trombonist, Buddy Schaub. Then during the next song, they had the girl do jumping jacks for the entire song.
These types of antics kept the show light-hearted and fun and gave the fans a different experience than just a fast set with little interaction. The crowd poured out into the snow covered streets of Hartford feeling hot, sweaty, and fulfilled.

MP3: Less Than Jake “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads”

There aren’t many bands that I attempt to see every time they tour my area, but OK Go tends to be one of them. Damian Kulash and company never fail to disappoint. Their performances are generally hallmarked by impeccable energy, stunning costuming, and pure precision. On this particular tour, the band is touring in colored suits. Lead singer, Damian Kulash was decked out in his all blue suit while flanked to his left was bassist Tim Nordwind in all yellow. Yellow is not easy to pull off but Nordwind never fails to look snazzy. Stage right, guitarist Andy Ross wore an all red suit while drummer Dan Konopka donned an all green suit. The quartet took the stage in Hartford, CT just a little after 10 pm on the unseasonably warm October night in Hartford, CT.
They kicked off their set with their 2006 single, “Do What You Want?” As has become a customary with their recent live show, the song was accompanied by a myriad of confetti cannon blows. The confetti cannons were used unsparingly throughout the show making me think that OK Go has to be one of the world’s largest buyers of confetti. After the show, I was still picking confetti out of my hair, hoodie, and pockets.
The group blazed through a set that included their latest single “White Knuckles” and older singles like “Don’t Ask” from their debut album, “A Million Ways”, “Invincible”, and “Here It Goes Again” from their sophomore album Oh No.
They closed their set with their debut single “Get Over It” to a large crowd ovation. The band took a small break before coming out for three song encore comprised of three songs from their 2010 album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. They played “WTF?”, “In the Glass”, and ending with “This Too Shall Pass”.
The set list was great but my only concern with the show is the path OK Go seems to be heading down. Their show was decidedly marked with kitschy novelties. The confetti cannons make for quite a spectacle and dry ice is an arena rock staple but then during the show they handed out 3D glasses and played the music video for their latest single “White Knuckles”. They also did a rendition of “Return” completely on hand bells. While the other band members put the hand bells away, Damien took his mic stand, acoustic guitar, and soapbox in to the middle of the audience to play “Last Leaf”. While one or two of these novelties are cool, OK Go seems to be boarding on going overboard and completely derailing any type of fluidity to their show.
With that said, I will still see OK Go every time they hit the Northeast. They manage to always put together a great set list and almost always seem to be having as much fun as the audience they are playing to.

MP3: OK Go “Return (on hand bells, live from Hartford)”