Duff Gig Review: The Toasters Live at B.B. King's (10/29/10)

I've been doing a lot of freelance work from my light-deprived apartment lately (and feeling like how Jerry Dammers depicted a depressed and withdrawn Terry Hall in "Housebound"--a record I've been playing a lot lately), so it was good to have the excuse to go be among other people at The Toasters' terrific gig at B.B. King's in Manhattan.

Since this was an unusually early show (for NYC at least), I missed the first two acts (Royal City Riot and Hub City Stompers), as both of my kids had friends over after school. I did make it in time to see The Pietasters (who played a surprising number of songs from their somewhat fractious Moon Records days, like "Biblical Sense" and "Girl Take it Easy" off Oolooloo). However, as their set went on, the sound levels were pushed to ridiculously high levels, so much to the point that it was hard to distinguish any melodies or what was being sung. (I guess the band wanted it that way, as everything was set to more discernible levels by the time The Toasters hit the stage). Despite all that, the kids on the dance floor seemed more than happy with The Pietasters' set.

Having seen several different iterations of The Toasters hit the US shores over the past several years, I can safely say that this batch of musicians that Buck had backing him for this tour were among the strongest I've witnessed--they were really smokin'! (Thad Merritt from Westbound Train was on bass; Logan Labarbera was on t-bone; Anant Pradhan from Void Union blew sax; Jesse Hayes, also from Void Union, was on drums--and ex-Toaster Dave Barry played keys and Westbound Train singer Obi Fernandez accompanied Buck on "Pirate Radio" and "Matt Davis.")

The set opened with a killer new tune, "House of Soul" (which, according to Buck, will be released as a 7" single at some point down the line; sorry that I didn't capture it on video for you), and then The Toasters ran through a long string of super-charged versions of their hit songs, touching on most of the albums from their deep catalogue. I may have gone a bit overboard with videotaping most of their set, but The Toasters were so damn good this night that I wanted to document it for posterity...