On Sunday June 23 Boston ska legends The Mighty Mighty Bosstones made their first Seattle appearance in four years and I was there to witness this esteemed event. The concert was once again held at Seattle’s Neptune Theater, a great venue to hold live music. This time they were promoting their brand new album While We’re At It.
Front man/singer Dicky Barrett moved back and forth about the stage, often leaning into the crowd, working them into a frenzy. The member who is truly amazing is Ben Carr who besides, adding the occasional backing vocals, dances non-stop, constantly moving from one side of the stage to the other and barely breaking a sweat.
The band came out wearing their matching black trousers and red jackets which never came off, giving them the appearance of an old-time lounge act. But the entire band’s onstage energy belies that lounge band look. Dicky shed his jacket late into the show and returned for the encore sporting a black t-shirt that said Neptune on it.
One of the highlights of the evening was their performance of the song Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah in which Dicky invited all the children in the audience to join the band on stage. Within a couple minutes the stage was filled with dancing smiling children ranging in age from about seven to about twelve. When the song ended the band posed for a photo-op with the children before returning them to waiting parents. Another highlight was when trombonist Chris Rhodes took over on lead vocals for the first half of the old Johnny Nash song I Can See Clearly Now, before Dicky took over.
When the band performed their hit The Impression That I Get, I was slammed so hard by those behind me I thought for sure I’d be catapulted onto the stage. A fair number of crowd surfers tumbled over the barricade as well.
The band returned for an encore that probably lasted at least half an hour (As Dicky put it, I’m having too much fun to stop). I was having too much fun to want them to stop and judging by the very enthusiastic response from the packed audience, so were they.
Though I did get to see the Bosstones at the Back to the Beach Festival a couple months ago, I hope I don’t have to wait another four years before seeing them play again. This was indeed a fun show. The rest of the Bosstones are, John Goetchius keys, Johnny Vegas sax (who’s a dead ringer for Stehpen Colbert), Joe Gittleman bass, Lawrence Katz guitar, and Leon silva, sax.
Los Kung Fu Monkeys opened the evening. I only caught their last two songs (had to run home to eat after spending the day at Seattle’s Pride Parade), but what I saw left me more than impressed. There was tons of energy in this band and a steady circle pit was in full swing. I hope these guys return to headline a show in Seattle as I would not hesitate to see them.
