Even if you're not a fan of ska-punk at all (guilty!) you probably remember this record as the one you heard just after No Doubt stopped being at all ska (and got good) and just before that Mighty Mighty Bosstones single ("The Impression That I Get," which you may remember as "Knock On Wood") hit the charts, forever defining the genre.
ANYWAY, the point here is not to provide an exhaustive history of the third wave of ska (though I probably did a decent job of it) but to point out that this "play the whole record live" thing is headed in a dangerous direction. I hate to use the phrase "jump the shark" because that expression itself jumped the shark back when Ally McBeal was jamming to Vonda Shepard, but that's pretty much exactly what I mean. Luckily, I doubt anyone who's read this many words into a post about Less Than Jake will be offended.
Sure, Jimmy Eat World's Clarity x 10 tour was awesome last year, the upcoming Weezer Blue Album/Pinkerton tour should be great. Even the Pixies Doolittle tour, which I was very skeptical of, seems to have been a hit.
But now that we've gotten to the point where Less Than Jake is reviving a record with the major distinction of having reached #18 on the Billboard Heatseekers Chart and causing an extremely minor controversy when MTV refused to air a "dope promoting" music video? How far are we from an anniversary tour for My Own Prison?
Too close for my comfort, at least.
LTJ's show is a one-off at a punk fest so it's sort of low profile and probably tens of fun for the legion of "superloyal fans" the press release announcing this show assures us they have. In that way, it's kinda cool, I guess. And if you buy a ticket to a festival headlined by Bad Religion, The Mighty
Mighty Bosstones, Circle Jerks, Anti-Flag, Bouncing Souls, and The Toasters, you deserve this.
But let's stop it here.
