Bass Drum of Death at Market Hotel (photo by Kate Hoos)
Fuzzy garage punk greats, Bass Drum of Death, are celebrating the 10th anniversary of their debut album GB City, which came out in 2011. As with many anniversary celebrations that were forced to be pushed back because of well…you know…things were delayed by a year. But they were finally able to hit the road in 2022 to properly honor the occasion and play the album in full, making for a raucous good time. I really loved that they played the album in order, because I’ve seen other anniversary album tours and I’ve been disappointed every time a band plays the songs in a random order and/or with other album tracks mixed in the middle. I do get the impetus to mix things up, but it just takes me out of the experience to not hear it in order because after all, isn’t that the point of playing the full album in the first place? And of course I want to hear other stuff too, but I am definitely a fan of playing through the album and adding in the other stuff after.
This was also my first time seeing the band play live, somehow always missing all of their pre-pandemic NYC shows. It was worth the wait though and they had the room in a sweat soaked frenzy from the first notes rang out til the final ounce of fuzz was wrung out of the chaos. After playing the entirety of GB City they hit other songs from their catalog, including my personal favorite “Lose My Mind,” from 2014’s Rip This. At the end of their set the crowd screamed for an encore but the band left the stage and that was as they say, that.
The evening was opened by Brooklyn locals, Dead Tooth, who were a perfect match sonically as well as energy wise. They got the crowd very riled up and ready for the main act, taking command of the room with their sax fueled garage jams.
At the end of the show the sweaty crowd happily slipped out into the night air which was somehow cooler than the air in the room, the perfect beginning to the long hot summer.
Setlist: Nerve Jamming, GB City, Get Found, Velvet Itch, High School Roaches, Spare Room, Young Pros, Heart Attack Kid, Leaves, I Could Never Be Yr Man, Religious Girls, Head Change, Just Business, Too Cold To Hold, Shattered Me, Lose My Mind, Crawling After You
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Kate Hoos)
DEAD TOOTH
BASS DRUM OF DEATH
