Review → The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Hometown Throwdown 11 (2008)
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
This is a somewhat unconventional post (for GDTS anyway), since it’s not a review of an album per se, it’s a review and recap of the shows I went to from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ holiday tradition, the Hometown Throwdown. This year, Throwdown 11, found the lads in plaid playing four shows at Cambridge, MA’s Middle East Nightclub, one night at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT (the so-called Rhodestown Throwdown, in honor of trombonist Chris Rhodes, who hails from New Haven), and a New Year’s Eve show at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, in Providence, RI.
I was able to attend nights 1, 3, and 4 at the Middle East. The Bosstones have been kicking out their unholy, unruly blend of ska, punk, hardcore, reggae, metal, and whatever else, for many, many years; since 1983 according to Wikipedia. They spent years making a name for themselves with their energetic, raucous live shows. Their first LP, Devil’s Night Out, was released on Taang!! Records in 1989. Since then, they’ve played more live shows than you can imagine, had a hit single with “The Impression That I Get,” off their 1997 album Let’s Face It, and took a 4-year hiatus, beginning in 2003. At this point, many fans of the band considered them gone, so when, one morning in October 2007, singer Dicky Barrett announced Throwdown 10 on WBCN (Boston), it sent excited shockwaves through the ska kids around the world who still held onto the plaid dreams of the band.
So, all that lead up! You ask, “yeah, we know the goddamned Bosstones. How were the shows?” In a word, phenomenal. The Bosstones have always been a terrific live act. And now, with all the members getting up there in years, one might expect the show to suffer. Not so, anyone who has seen them since Throwdown 10 will confirm. The band appears to feed off- and give out- the energy and love they get from the crowd, and likewise the crowd answers in spades. A Bosstones show may in fact be the thing that could power a perpetual motion machine.
Like any good multiple-night stand by a band, the setlists were sufficiently diverse; over the course of all 6 shows, the band played 63 different songs from their extensive catalog. With an average of 24 songs per show, that’s not bad. Of course, there are going to be repeats; notably, “Impression,” “Rascal King,” “Don’t Worry Desmond Dekker,” and “Where’d You Go?” were played at all of the shows. You’ll not find me complaining, as those four songs are hits and fan favorites, and I enjoy them every time. But the highlights definitely had to be the extent to which the band pulled from their back catalog. Long-time fans could be seen going absolutely nuts when they played the “Bosstones chestnut” “Pirate Ship,” a song only available on the 2×10″ version of their album Question the Answers, and never played live before the band’s show in Buffalo earlier this year.
Over the course of the shows, they played nearly the entirety of their sophomore album, More Noise & Other Disturbances; only “Bad in Plaid” didn’t make the cut. A member of the Bosstones’ message board broke down the setlists from each night, getting a count of how many times each song was played, how many songs from each album were represented, and so on. It proved invaluable when writing all of the above!
So, the shows I saw! Night 1 saw some sound issues, but the band itself was on top fo their game. The energy was non-stop from the get-go, and they cranked out the hits. Night 3 was the all ages show, so the energy level of the crowd had the youhtful exuberance factor added to it. Couple that with an even stronger setlist than the first night, and one can only imagine the blissful chaos of the show. Not to mention, as a highlight, the Bosstones played their cover of Boston hardcore legends Slapshot’s “What’s At Stake,” with that band’s lead singer- blood pouring from an injury during his band’s set- performing vocal duties with Dicky Barrett.
Night 4 had what has been called the best set of the Middle East shows. Throwing out classics like “Guns and the Young,” “They Came to Boston,” “Drunks and Children,” and others, they got the crowd moving and kept them going all night. Openers Big D and the Kids Table were slightly disappointing with their set- the list contained almost no songs not off their 2007 album Strictly Rude- but the Bosstones more than made up for it. A definite highlight was the first encore song, “Awfully Quiet,” performed with the horn section from Big D, and Chris Rhodes running through the crowd, blaring away.
Any long-time Bosstones fan- a member of the 737- will tell you that the Hometown Throwdown is not to be missed if you can possibly go. This series of shows proved to anyone who needed convincing that the ‘Tones have still got it, and don’t appear to be losing it any time soon. Absolutely amazing. And a great way to cap off 2008!
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