The Pietasters
King Bojangles 
The Wetlands Preserve, New York NY 
Review By: Colin

Let me make this clear before you read the rest of my review: I arrived at the Wetlands piss drunk and unaware of my surroundings. As I arrived the first band was setting up – and hour late, so I didn’t miss anything. The first band was King Bojangles (or King Jangles, like I said I was drunk, and the fact I remembered their name is amazing, cause I’m drawing a blank on the other opening band). They didn’t suck, most of them wore masks on stage, that confused me for awhile. Their tunes were catchy and their lyrics were made for sing along, but unfortunately, I couldn’t keep my balance, so I sat by the bar and smoked cigarettes. (A great thing about the Wetlands, they let you smoke inside, no going outside in the rain/cold/heat.) When their set ended I decided to explore the Wetlands, and by the time I returned to where the music was the second band was halfway through their set. That’s odd because the Wetlands isn’t that big. The second band was poppy ska, and if I can find out the name I’ll add it to the review for you. They also had some catchy tunes.

Then The Pietasters came on, and crowd for wild. The place was packed during their set, but somehow everyone was dancing. Except for one goofy fucker standing next to me. He was about 6 feet tall and totally ripped. He was also the kind of asshole who shows it off by wearing muscle shirts. Anyway, he didn’t move an inch the entire show, didn’t smile or make any of facial expressions. And let me make this straight, The Pietasters put on one fucking awesome show. They were drunk as hell and it showed. The bassist kept looking at the ceiling, smiling, and occasionally screaming fuck you to no one in particular. During the song Wasted they poured beer all over the crowd. They dedicated the song Higher to all the potheads in the crowd, and during the song, smoked a blunt onstage. At one point Steve Jackson (the singer) kissed the bassist (I think his name was George. He looked like a Euro fag soccer player, but a good bassist nonetheless). On a sad note about the show, it was Tom Gordons last show. He has been their guitarist for a long, maybe from the beginning, I really don’t know but he’s in all the CD sleeves off the CDs I have. Do you want to hear about the songs they played? Good, because that’s what I’m writing about next. They played songs from all their releases, Ocean, Higher, Out All Night, Without You from Willis, Girl Take it Easy from OoLooLoo, Dollar Bill and Maggie Mae from Piestomp and an assortment of songs from their record (I got it there so I didn’t know the names of the songs at the time). Most everybody was singing along, with exception of the narco standing next to me. To close, they said they were recorded a live CD that night, so chances are they will be released a live CD. So if you are one of those people that never go to shows, whether no ride or no money or bitchy parents, you must buy the live CD. It is impossible to grasp how good The Pietasters are until you’ve seen them live.