Less Than Jake, Snuff, All


at Water Street Music Hall
October 24, 1998, Rochester, NY

by jennie

Less Than Jake has been one of my favorite bands since my introduction to Soundcheck in 1996. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to see them at the Warped Tour here in 1997. Unfortunately, that's the only time they've ever played here. So when it came up that they were playing in Rochester again (60-odd miles away), my friend Patty agreed to drive out. To make things even cooler, thanks to Vinnie (drummer/lyricist), we were guest-listed.

Finally getting there (kinda got lost, then had to park 4 blocks away), the doorman looked skepitcal of my ID (common reaction), told me to smile, then gave me my 21+ wristband (counting me & Patty, I guess there were about 10 there). The ticket guy was very cool, checking us off and telling us to have a great time or enjoy the show or something.
Maybe it's because we lack any really good venues here, but this place was cool to me. There's the lower level with the stage, and an upper level that seemed a little shakey :). But I heard that if you're not right up to the railing in the upper deck, you can't see. We only wandered briefly up there, but on the staircase we ran into Roger (bassist/sometimes singer, seen here in the background), so that rocked. :)

All this while, Snuff was onstage playing. They sounded really good, played the couple songs I know, and were looking good too. Apparantly we'd missed Braid, the first openers. Taking a spot down front to the right, ALL came on. Blah. They played about 2 Descendents songs ("I Wanna Be A Bear" and "Everything Sucks"), and even those weren't sounding that great. A real disappointment. So we wandered around while they were on, over to the merchandise, which cool ltj boy Sean (roadie, merch, and all around great guy) was handling. Sigh. ;)
While contemplating what to buy, this kid I know - the one who thinks I'm not cool enough to like punk - came up and said hi. We chatted for a bit before he & his friend returned to the ALL crowd. Finally I decided that the Snuff t-shirts were too plain, I opted for a soccer-style ltj one (over the other very cool one, with the ltj/pezboy on the front, and 3 guys on the back: much more than jake (a fat guy), jake (a normal guy), the pezguy (less than jake)), and I grabbed 2 CDs (admittedly I only had dubs of them, and they've been worn out for awhile!). $29 in all, it wasn't too bad.

So we went back up front to wait for less than jake. Chatted with this kid from Syracuse for a bit, and oogled the guy behind us (was he ever cute - really reminded me of kevin). The lights dimmed and flashed and there was this creepy skeleton-masked guy on stage; really expected some guy to run through the crowd stabbing people at this point (okay, so I just watched Halloween the night before & it was in my mind!). Then the band started and the crowd went wild. Into the second song, Patty retreats to the back of the crowd. I was holding on to this pole for some stability, and so was oogle-boy. Midway through the set, I decided I'd just relax and pretend I was with him, which he either didn't notice or didn't care.

The set itself hinted that they might as well have called it the Losing Streak tour, as that's where the majority of the songs came from. Off the top of my head what I can remember:

from Losing Streak:
Automatic
Just Like Frank
How's My Driving, Doug Hastings?
Happyman
9th at Pine
107
Sugar In Your Gastank
Shindo
Ask The Magic 8-ball
Rock-N-Roll Pizzeria
Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts
Jen Doesn't Like Me Anymore
from Hello Rockview:
5 State Drive
All My Best Friends Are Metalheads
Motto
History Of A Boring Town

from Pezcore
Liquor Store
My Very Own Flag
One Last Cigarette

from Losers, Kings, ... Don't Understand:
Where The Hell Is Mike Sinkovich?
Shotgun

I think there were more from Rockview, but I'm still a little foggy on those tunes, and I'm counting "Johnny" and "Jen" from Streak 'cause that's where I'm thinking these people knew them from ... It was a total teeny-bopper crowd (average age maybe 16), especially this one annoying moose of a girl next to me. She was trying to dance and be cool, and whenever they played a non-Streak song, she'd just scream. It was obvious she was just there to see Roger, not for the music.

So ... it was a good show. I liked LTJ when I saw 'em at the Warped Tour last year better, but oh well. Hopefully they'll make it out to Buffalo some time. But check 'em out if you get the chance!


live shows