New York – NYC-based melodic garage punk band Skaters played their album release show at Bowery Ballroom Monday, and it was nothing short of a riotous dance party. Skaters came out to the Ghost Busters theme song as a tribute to the recently departed Harold Ramis, who played Egon. But, because this show was a celebration of Skaters’ debut record release, Manhattan, happening in Manhattan, the energy was only exponential. Skaters got down to it, playing all the jams off their new record, and all the kids in the crowd knew all the words. A mosh pit broke out at the first tune, and no one in the front stopped dancing the entire time. When Skaters played “I Wanna Dance (But I Don’t Know How),” it was clear the literal interpretation of that sentiment was irrelevant.
Front man Michael Cummings played it cool, grabbing the mic off the stand and singing while swinging the stand around while swigging from a huge bottle, and the rest of the guys rocked out and sang along like these songs really embodied the essence of their beings. Every element of their sound, from the more Strokes sounding songs like “Symptomatic” to the more The Clash-derived reggae sounds of “Band Breaker” and “Fear of the Knife,” everything translated into reciprocated energy. By the time they ended on “To Be Young,” Skaters had clearly tailored that choice to all the young people rocking out to their show in New York City, and the response was all hair flying and fists in the air. Of course an encore was in order, and my personal favorite “Schemers” was the finale, with such on point lyrics like “I’ve got to let you know / I’ve got to feel it” being the perfect line to shout along for all us like minds.
We were celebrating Manhattan, but So So Glos brought the Brooklyn counterpoint hard, starting straight out of the gate with Wu-Tang’s “Bring Da Ruckus” as their intro theme. Brooklyn born and bred, these punks repped the borough hard. This was the first time I had seen them outside of a DIY Brooklyn venue, and they were definitely more polished but also worked the crowd hard and got right in people’s faces. They combined relevant messages like the gentrification of neighborhoods with sing-along “ooohs” and catchy claps, and also banged out hard. Really, we had the best of both boroughs at this show.
