Playing at Seattle’s Bumbershoot as part of their short reunion tour, the Replacements kick, kick, kicked our doors down. We didn’t realize what great anthems those songs were when only 200 people were in the audience.
Somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 were in attendance Sunday at the main stage at Memorial Stadium, singing along with “Favorite Thing,” “Don’t Ask Why” and other full-throttle numbers. The ‘Mats got tentative in the late ‘80s, trying for pop chart success, and they seemed to shrink in the arenas.
Away from that pressure, in front of adoring fans old and new, Paul and Tommy reveled in the adrenaline rush of the fast and furious songs from their early records. The band played several songs from “Tim” and “Don’t Tell a Soul,” but they delivered those with a punk intensity too. Bobby Stinson would have been proud.
Yes, middle-aged guys dominated the audience, but a good percentage of the crowd was younger and nearly a third were women. We shouted “kiss me” with gusto for the chorus of “On the Bus.” It’s like we and band understand better than ever, “If you knew I felt now, you wouldn’t act so adult now.”
