Reel Big Fish & Streetlight Manifesto Ska Concert Review

Earlier this year I had the fortune to get tickets to a concert that was to take place in Allentown's Croc Rock Café.

The Concert
Reel Big Fish, Streetlight Manifesto, Suburban Legends and Westbound train.

The Venue
The Croc Rock Café is a fine place to a see a concert. The place was packed like crazy - which is to be expected at concerts- but Croc Rock has these huge side walls that are like gates to the front of store, they opened these up for the majority of the performance and it really helped air the place out. The venue was split into one massive section - the underage kids, and some space next to the bar for those of age. From the looks of it; the show was probably much more comfortable from those "21" seats. Either way, the venue pleased me and I'll look into going there again.

Westbound Train
Fairly new band, not as well known as the other bands. This was the first band to perform to start the night. They did an excellent job- mixing ska with some funky smooth reggae beats. It seemed that the mic's on their horns were not calibrated well because it wasn't until the end of their performance when the volume was turned up on them. Despite the minor technical issue it was still a great performance and definitely got myself and others to look into Westbound Train a little more.

Suburban Legends
This was the second band to perform. Their performance was, in my opinion, the best of the night. The music they play is a blend of ska/disco/funk. Whatever it is, it sounds great and forces you to start skanking (the dancing that is done at ska concerts is often referred to as skanking) your feet on the dance floor. The horns had choreographed dance bits where they were all swinging from side to side or dipping up and down and it just made the performance so much more exciting. The lead singer is extremely charismatic and just made me really dig his band during that performance (loved when he was singing "High Fives" and was running around the stage High Five'ing the crowd) - luckily after the show I managed to buy their and CD and he signed it for me. Definitely a band to look up, can't wait to catch another one of their shows.

Streetlight Manifesto
This was the third band to perform. This well-known band formed from some of the artists formerly in Catch 22. They definitely carried over some of the same tone- but hey that's fine because Catch 22 was a great ska band. They played many of their own songs, but personally my favorite was when they played the Catch 22 song "9mm and a three piece suit", it was awesome. Honestly, this band is very good but I'm not dying to see them again- the performance lacked the liveliness that Suburban Legends disco'ish beats had just prior drilled into my ears.

Reel Big Fish
Of course, the main event, performed last. Reel Big Fish is tied for my favorite living band- so naturally I loved the performance. All show the main guitarist was going by the name "Beast Master" and that made every piece of dialogue between songs hilarious. They played all the favorites like "Trendy", "Beer" (we, the crowd, had to beg all show because they kept refusing), "Sell-out" (to finish the show off course) and many more. Great show; however I wouldn't say they had the best performance of the bands that played though they may have sounded the best.