Avoid One Thing / Bigwig / The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel - Providence, RI
October 25th, 2002

I was excited to be seeing this show for a few reasons. Primarily because I'd never seen Avoid One Thing play before and I really wanted to see how Joe was as a front man. And also because it had so damn long since I had seen the Bosstones.

Avoid One Thing was up first and played a solid set. Most, if not all of the stuff that they played was off of their first album. There were one or two that I didn't recognize, but it had been a while since I listened to their cd. Joe Sorois was filling in on the skins for the late Dave Karcich. Joe knew all of the songs real well and did a fine job. This left me wondering if AOT is still looking for a drummer, or if Joe is going to be playing with them permanently.

Bigwig played second and weren't that impressive. I liked their covers of the Cheer's Theme and Knowledge. But the rest wasn't anything to write home about.

The Bosstones entered in dramatic fashion as usual and opened right up Old School Off the Bright. What a great song to open with. I love the instrumentals that lead in to the song, and they give Dicky a chance to warm up the crowd before he belts into "Bring in the skins...." The rest of the show was just like any other Bosstones show. The band played a pretty good mix of songs with one exception. Over the Eggshells was the only song that they played from Pay Attention. Other than that, they played all of the favorites, including a bunch of songs off of A Jackknife to a Swan. A lot of people got up on stage that night which was kind of cool. When they played Lights Out the stage was packed with people. Quite a sight to see. I can't wait to see these guys play in Boston in December.

Yeah that's what I said, December. I talked to Dicky before the show, and the unofficial dates for the Throwdown are December 11th through 15th. Remember, that's unofficial, but the River City Rebels site says they're playing at Axis with the Bosstones on the 11th, so these dates look pretty solid.