It was a night of good old East Coast ska inside the graffiti-ridden brick walls of The Edge in the Maine state capital. Five bands rocked the stage, ranging from punk to old-school, second-wave ska.
First on the tab was The Jimmies, an all-girl punk band from Bangor, featuring the infamous Laura Zukowski (a.k.a. Zuke) on the guitar. Their blend of ska and in-your-face punk got the crowd jumping as Zuke belted out the snotty lead vocals, backed by Marlo on drums and Jaime on the bass.
Next up was Portland’s own That’s What She Said, a ska/punk band with about as much energy as an army of Ritalin-deprived second-graders on a speed binge. You think I’m kidding? The combination of the four horn players’ crisp melodies interjected by a talented rhythm section and singer Dan Lohmeyer’s lively lyrics blew the place up.
The momentum created by The Jimmies and That’s What She Said was soon destroyed as another punk/ska band (with the emphasis on punk), Mr. Breakfast, stepped on stage. At first the band was tight and played a nice mellow porn-groove kind of song, but after that their set was plagued by repetitive run-of-the-mill, angry punk songs that didn’t do very much to impress the crowd. In the end, however, the band was redeemed somewhat by a song called “Timebomb” that included audience participation and incurred an all out mosh-pit frenzy inherent in a good punk show.
Following Mr. Breakfast was an amazing band out of Boston called Big D and the Kid’s Table, a seven-piece ska band who just finished playing the Van’s Warped Tour. The energy from this band was intense as well, especially when lead singer Dave McWane hung off a rafter and belted out the lyrics to an audience full of skanking teenagers.
Arguably the best performance of the night was by The Toasters, a six-piece ska band from New York who originally formed in the early 80’s. The guitarist and lead singer, Buck Hingley, is the founder of the notorious ska label, Moonska Records, which has some of the best ska bands in the world signed.
Anyway, The Toasters definitely knew what they were doing, combining traditional off beat ska with elements of reggae and blues. Buck ripped up the guitar as Jack Ruby’s guttural vocals and the intricate horn lines made it impossible to not dance. The horn players were very talented as well, with Brian Sledge on the trumpet, growling Louis Armstrong-like into the microphone while Jeff Richey pulled off amazing solos on the tenor sax.
Some say that ska is dead, but after seeing these bands and witnessing the crowd’s reaction, one would have to argue otherwise. Ska is a kind of music that is best when experienced live, because the energy emitted from the music causes an unexplained phenomenon in the human body: it makes people dance. This was certainly evident as about a hundred sweat-soaked teenagers left The Edge after witnessing one of the best ska shows this area has seen in a long time.
Jon Blood can be contacted at [email protected]