Donnerstag, 8. Feb 2007, 15:15
Last Monday, I had the pleasure to join the concert of the Toasters and Go Jimmy Go. I had already watched them once in the Zakk, also in Düsseldorf.
In this occasion the event was at Stone in Ratinger Hof. This venue is meant to be a milestone for Punk in the 80's. The place is cool for this kind of gigs. Good location, small, can host about 150 people facing directly onto the stage, the sound was simply perfect and the sound engineer deserves big congrats.
Go Jimmy Go did really cool, they were all dressed with The Toasters T-shirts being very (even too much as their music is also great) conscious of their supporting. The band rocks and I have to congrat the tenor sax player, singer and guitarist. Sorry to "discriminate" as the others were also great, but that is what my ears - those of a saxophonist - captured most remarkably. Their music, particularly their chorus, was very Jamaica oriented, always great for Ska.
One of the most impressive members of The Toasters is their bass player (even most impressive is that I was unable to find out in the web the names of the members of the band), who makes the band grove in great solid and really enjoyable rhythms, while introducing some real good "toasting" in their songs. But what amused me most was the guitarist, main singer and leader attitude towards a crowd who did not stop bouncing to each other, leading to knock microphones down and so on "smashing the PA is bad, guys, it is baaaaaad" like a mum would say to her kid. It showed great roady experience. They never lost their sense of humor. In fact, last year a colleague of mine said to him "you are old", I though he would not like it, and he replied "you are my friend!"
From the "bouncers", mostly teenagers willing to enjoy at 200%, the solidarity among them was remarkable in picking up the people that fell into the floor, one after another (always the same three where the floor lovers). Their joy was great, mine too but from a higher, safe place.
Saxophonist has improved dramatically since last year, and really breathes from New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble saxophonist Freddy Reiter's style.
I summarize saying that these guys play a Ska which clearly visited New York and loves the Rock and Roll. Therefore it grooves, it rocks, and it grants great fun to spend well your adrenaline. Go Jimmy Jazz are surely supporters worth listening to, definately ideal in this gig.