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Live review: The Scabs
Local boys the Scabs brought a little taste of Tuesday night at Antone’s circa 1998 to the Austin Ventures Stage on Saturday night. The band’s set was culled primarily from their seminal album, “Freebird,” but it looked at first as if the notoriously raunchy funk outfit was going to turn in a set of G-rated versions of these tunes. Singer Bob Schneider censored the choruses of the band’s second tune with an air horn turning the funky, James Brown inspired ode to horniness into “HONK Fever.” The air horn wasn’t working properly, though, and thankfully Schneider ditched the prop during the song’s extended ending vamp.
Without a self-censoring device, Schneider reverted to the original, vulgar lyrics for songs like “Pudding & Cheese” and another song that extols the virtues of large rumps and fellatio. I don’t know what was more enjoyable, watching the guys to my left who’d never heard the band get into the bawdy groove, or watching the young parents to my right try to decide whether they should scoop up the kids and beat a hasty retreat. Both stuck around and were dancing and singing along to “Tarantula” by the end of the set.
Guitarist Adam Temple turned a few blistering guitar solos and the horns were incredibly tight; “Pushing on the Pull Bar” and “Bombananza” sounded like they hadn’t aged a day. The band proved it still has a sense of humor with brief teases of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” and the “Entertainment Tonight” theme song. The band’s thrash metal send up of local grocery chain HEB got a few laughs as well.
All joking aside, Schneider and crew turned in an hour of tight, high-energy funk that held the rain at bay long enough for the most lively crowd I’ve seen at this year’s festival to shake off the mud and dance, dance, dance.
Jay Janner photo
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Permalink | | Categories: ACL 2009: Saturday, ACL Festival 2009
