90s flashbacks anyone? On Monday, L and I got our ska on down at the Rialto Theater. If you haven't seen them, RBF is a fantastic band to see live. All mohawks, bow ties, suspenders and Chucks. As with most bands who have been playing together for years, their performance and choreography was spot on. They bring an enormous amount of energy and just make playing music look like so much fun. Streetlight Manifesto (website sucks, music doesn't) is sort of a aughts answer to ska (or according to Wikipedia, post punk NJ ska): power punk with a heavy brass section. They have a more jazzy influences than RBF, but also a more aggressively driving lead guitar. All in all, they were fantastic and I hope we'll catch them again. I particularly liked their cover of Bad Religion's "Skyscraper" (better live):
Not heavy on the brass, but an enjoyable cover nonetheless.
The opening band was a new-to-us group, Rodeo Ruby Love. Also in the ska-ish vein, they' have 3 albums out (according to their myspace page) and they have a nice sound. I always appreciate a female vocalist with a ska band (Save Ferris anyone), and I though their song "A small house in the city" was particularly good.
I'm really impressed with the music scene here in Tucson. We've gone to a number of shows and they've all been good performances and reasonably priced. This Sunday: the Rev. Horton Heat. We plan on hitting up the Hotel Congress for pre-concert drinks because, baby, it's martini time!
Awesome. I miss going to see low-key ska and punk shows. I think I saw Less Than Jake about 8-10 times just because they always put a lot of time, energy, and enthusiasm into the performance and the songs were half-decent. I should start getting back into that. Ska bands always know how to have a good time and I'm pretty sure there's a big scene in Berlin as well. :-)
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