The Mighty Mighty Bosstones | Live at Boston City Hall Plaza 6/21/2014

Last weekend The Mighty Mighty Bosstones celebrated lead singer Dicky Barrett’s 50^th birthday by doing something that they’ve never done before: playing a show in Boston.  Okay, they’ve been playing there for 30 years but what the hell.  Let’s do it again. It’s finally warm in Massachusetts let’s bust out those plaid skanking shoes and awkwardly dance the night away to horns of our youth.  Here’s what you missed:

The first thing you may notice is that they are still wearing the matching suits. At least that’s what I noticed first. Getting dressed up is hard. Most bands seem to dress worse than me: white/obscure band t-shirt and ripped jeans. Where’s the goddamn showmanship? Well, the Bosstones brought style and music for 90 jolly minutes ripping through old favorites “Dr D.” (the show opener), “1-2-8”, and “Rascal King”, as well as some newer ones from their 2000s albums including “Wasted Summers”, “Like a Shotgun”, and “They Will Need Music”.  It was kind of them to play music that encouraged dancing the whole time because Boston City Hall Plaza is a cobblestone hell for standing still for too long.  I remember seeing the Bosstones at the same venue 15 years ago. Then we were dumb teenagers crowd surfing, not worrying about harsh landings.  Now the cobblestone has our dogs barking in no time. Hey, getting old sucks.

But apparently not for the Bosstones. They seemed to have a great time out there playing music, interacting with the fans, and bringing out old friends and family to play on stage with them. Surprisingly even Jimmy Kimmel (whom Barrett announces for on his late night show) came out and played saxophone on “The Impression that I Get”. The song was of course so big in the 90s that some might think of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones as a one hit wonder. But you could tell from the crowd that everyone there was a fan of the three decades of music, not just one formerly overplayed track.  Or it’s just Boston, and we’re all easily won over by the frequent mentions of the hometown in several of their songs.  Like in “I Want My City Back” which opened the encore.  With former guitarist Nate Albert still joining the band, they follow it with “Where’d You Go?”, a song immortalized by inarguably the best movie for the last 20 years Clueless.  Finally, they ended the set with “A Pretty Sad Excuse” from 2009’s Pin Points and Gin Joints; a slowly building up track that seems to be written specifically to close out a set.

Barrence Whitfield and the Savages and The Gaslight Anthem opened the show.  I missed the first band because I’m late for everything but I did make it for Gaslight.  The played a tight set focusing on mostly their upbeat and best known songs with the exception of “Blue Jeans and White T-Shirts”, more of a fan favorite from the 4-song Senor and the Queen EP.  Even with a new album dropping in August, the band didn’t play anything that people didn’t know and the crowd showed their appreciation by clapping and singing along surprisingly enthusiastically for a non-headliner.  They closed their set with “Backseat” which includes in the most obvious musical clues for both clapping and jumping up and down.  Live music is just the best.

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Bake

I'm nothing. Maybe less than nothing. I also write.

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