Violent Femmes at Count Basie — 10/22/2022
So, the Violent Femmes have been around for over 40 years. My brother Rob and I saw them for the first time last September at The Stone Pony Summer Stage, sandwiched between Me First And The Gimme Gimmes and Flogging Molly, the headliner that night. Most mere mortals know at least a couple of Violent Femmes songs without even knowing it: you’ll no doubt recognize Blister In The Sun and Kiss Off from these Spotify links.
Rob and I were blown away by the talent in the group. Gordon Gano, chief songwriter and lead vocalist, plays lead guitar, and also plays banjo, violin, and some other strings I can’t identify. Drummer John Sparrow bangs on the drum kit, stand-alone stand-up snare drum, xylophone, and a variety of other things I’ll call “percussion”, including washboards and a piece of plywood. Brian Richie plays a massive bass violin and some other instruments that also happen to have four strings. And Blaise Garza plays a massive, 12-foot tall saxophone, and some smaller versions of the instrument. The Stone Pony set was awesome.
This year, the Femmes booked a show at the Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, NJ, about a mile and a half from my home. I grabbed a couple of tickets, hoping that my wife Christine would join me, since these were reserved, theater-style seats, and no mosh pit likely to form up. Brother Vince and Joyce in Pittsburgh heard about the Femmes gig, and signed up for a weekend in New Jersey with us. Vince is a serious Violent Femmes fan, and has seen them at least half a dozen times. And has organized bar fights based on their rock-out song, Add It Up. Two more tickets for the show, which was last night.
We were treated to a terrific hour and a half set. The Femmes led off with Add It Up, minus the bar fight, to get things rocking. They ripped through 20-plus songs from their catalog. Count Basie holds about 1500 people, and most of the seats were full. I’d guess that about 1200 of them knew all the words to all the songs, including Vince.
The core team of Violent Femmes blasted away on guitar, bass, drums, and sax — similar to the Stone Pony setup, with a couple of differences. There was no drum kit to speak of, other than a stand-up snare drum and a Weber grill (for real!), that drummer Richie banged the hell out of all night. There were a couple of cameos by trumpet and trombone guys for some color, but it was mostly the core team doing their thing. They were great, and the crowd loved every number.
Their encore included I’m Not Gonna Cry, and of course Blister In The Sun and Kiss Off.
You can see highlights from last night’s set here.