There is always one thing to count on in the summer, and its a Mighty Mighty Bosstones tour.  This year was a special tour though, the Bosstones’ 1997 release Let’s Face It, turns 20 years old and what better way to celebrate it than to play it in full on this tour run.  The last date of the tour featured local ska punk band Backyard Superheroes and New York’s satanic ska band Mephiskapheles, a great line up to get the crowd amped for the Bosstones.  The Bosstones welcomed the crowd in their traditional suits for the show and instant appreciation as the first chord hit for “Noise Brigade”.  From there the Bosstones ran through the entire Let’s Face It album, with Dicky Barrett giving some commentary before songs and bringing up a 10 year old crowd surfer during “Another Drinkin’ Song”.  Dicky would comically point out the huge age difference not only for the album, but specifically the song to her.  The rest of the 27 song set spanned all of the Bosstones musical history from old to newest, covers, and in Dicky’s words turning into a daycare with allowing more kids on stage to dance around.  A moment shared with the families of the kids as the Bosstones joined together for a group photo on stage.  The encore for the night featured four songs with three older songs, “Devil’s Night Out”, “Dr. D”, and “A Little Big Ugly”, definitely fan favorites and ones not played as much.

When Let’s Face It came out, I was only 10 years old, but I remember seeing the video on MTV for “The Impression That I Get” and thinking this is different in a good way.  An album like Let’s Face It grew in popularity during that time, which was only natural for how each song could’ve been a single, but the real test was would it have lasting power?  The answer is yes, 100%.  20 years later and fans still love the album, and usually when an album gets that successful fans start to loose interest.  Yet, the Bosstones stayed true to who they are and kept producing great albums.  Highly suggest owning each album of theirs, maybe they should release a vinyl box set, just saying.  Does Let’s Face It have a place in 2017, absolutely!  No matter what political party you side with, the lyrics to the song “Let’s Face It” still hold true in this day an age, which is good and bad thing.  Good that the song still has meaning, but bad that the song still has meaning.  The Mighty Mighty Bosstones aren’t just a ska band, they are talented and smart musicians and Dicky’s lyrics are more poetry than lyrics.  Hopefully you got to catch this tour and hopefully you remember how crucial the Bosstones are to the music scene.  I haven’t and I look forward to many more years of that skacore sound.

http://www.bosstonesmusic.com/