SHOW REVIEW: The Toasters At The Cobalt Café

When I heard that the legendary ska act, “The Toasters,” were going to be playing at a coffee shop in the Valley, I knew I had to check them out. The circumstances were just too weird to miss.

The venue itself was odd – The Cobalt Café is sort of a coffee shop and sort of a concert venue, but it’s closer to an elementary school multi-purpose room than anything else. It is barren and dank, which is not a knock on the place at all, I just find it interesting that a place like the Cobalt even exists in the Valley. An unassuming all-ages punk rock club sandwiched in between two restaurants on Sherman Way. Pretty cool if you ask me.

The Toasters hit the stage with little fanfare. They just slowly assembled on stage, Bucket said hello, and they launched into a block of crowd favorites including “2-Tone Army” and “I’m Running Right Through The World” among others. And while the set list was great, I couldn’t help but notice the band’s unfortunately slimmed-down line-up. They were without a keyboard player and, more noticeably, someone to “toast” (ironically). While Bucket is a reliable front man, he’s not terribly interesting. I think the flavor and the swagger the Toasters are known for, comes from the rapping/toasting verses in their songs; the current line-up of the band, literally skips over these parts of the songs. The result was that every song seemed 2 minutes too long and the set felt rigid.

While I did have a good time at the show, and it was fun to hear all my favorite Toasters songs loud and up close, I think I’m subconsciously pretending I saw a Toasters cover band on Friday night and that the real band is touring out there… somewhere.