The crowd was tense, and after sitting through two amazingly horrible bands, they were ready to hear what they came for: the hits of Sublime as covered by a band called Badfish.
The three members walked slowly on stage, picked up their instruments and began to play. But, a look of confusion came across the audience, surely this “music” coming from their instruments was not a Sublime song? And then the horror hit, after sitting through three hours of lousy music, they now had to endure original songs before getting to hear their favorite Sublime songs. However, before we really get into reviewing Badfish, it may be important to understand a little bit about who they are and what they do.
Badfish is a three man (four technically) band that originally hails from Providence, Rhode Island, although they have taken their music and their talent across the country many times. The main draw of Badfish is simply that they are a tribute band, they play, as close to the original as possible, the well known and not so well known songs of Sublime. At every show, the band starts out by playing four or five original tunes, and then goes into their main act, covering the hits of Bradley Bradley Nowell and company.
For a band that has had a large number of tours and a decent amount of time together though, one would expect that their original songs would be just a tad bit better. Even their own tunes sound suspiciously like Sublime songs, and one has to wonder at a certain point if the three have ever really listened to anything else.
Not that Badfish’s original songs are “bad” per say, they just really weren’t that great, and they certainly didn’t do justice to the musical talent that the members surely show with the rest of their show.
Nonetheless, most people don’t come to a Badfish show really caring about what original songs the group is going to play. Rather, most come to here Sublime. Their only real chance to hear an entire set of Sublime songs, considering that Sublime’s lead singer, Nowell, died of a drug overdose before the band signed to a major label.
In that regard, Badfish doesn’t disappoint. Although singer Pat doesn’t hit the vocal perfectly, he does a very good job considering the man that he’s trying to imitate. And anyone who has ever seen Badfish play can attest to the excellence of the musical ability found in all three members. During a particularly moving rendition of “Rivers of Babylon”, Pat, on guitar, and Scott on acoustic guitar, hit nearly every single note and each wavering pitch perfectly, creating a truly captivating experience for the audience.
Sometimes though, the band does get a little bit too into their music, and it becomes clear very quickly that although they play the music of Sublime, their presentation and stage antics are nothing close to the original band.
Although they are definitely good, at no point during the performance did anyone forget that they were seeing what amounts to a tribute band.
However, perhaps the only really bad part of the show was the band’s timing. Despite starting out with a couple well known favorites, such as “What I Got” and “Santeria” the band soon dissolved into roughly an hour of obscure gems, many of which even hardcore fans in the audience had trouble relating too. This would definitely have been much more tolerable if Badfish had not played these obscurities for over an hour or so. Finally, in the last half hour of the show, they once again broke out the classics, playing favorites such as “40 oz. to Freedom”, “April 26th, 1992” and “Wrong Way”. One could not measure the level of energy in the venue as the audience screamed along with that famous line from “April 26th”
True, the bands leading up to their performance were somewhat bad (Madame was absolutely horrible) but the actual performance from Badfish was both fun and entertaining. It was experience that would be repeated again in a heartbeat. After all, how many times do you get to sing along to “The Wrong Way?”
