It’s hard to believe that it’s only been two years since Streetlight Manifesto dropped “Everything Goes Numb,” by far the best ska record released in this millennium. I have not-so-patiently waited while the band has booked, and then cancelled, Salt Lake City on their last two tours of the left side of America.
Oh, of course they had their excuses for leaving me hangin’ From their website, “[We] also wanted to mention a few firsts coming up on the next tour: 1) Show in Salt Lake City (we've had a freakishly bizarre series of events that always prevented us from playing there) (and to that kid that keeps writing in, cursing us off for hating his city, calm down kid, take your Ritalin, we're on the way.)”
This time they really came. “Hello Salt Lake City,” lead singer Tomas Kalnoky greeted the crowd of 300+ at the Lo-Fi Café, “we finally made it. It’s about [expletive] time.” The seven piece band opened with a short instrumental intro and then kicked into “A Moment of Violence” that worked the crowd into a frenzy.
It wasn’t really necessary for Kalnoky to have a microphone. It was hard to hear his lyrics over the crowd singing every word as the band pounded out hits like “We are the Few,” “A Moment of Silence,” and “That’ll Be the Day.” Every song was danceable, singable, rejoicable.
After teasing the crowd with 15 seconds of a new song, Kalnoky told fans that this would be their last chance to hear all of the “Numb” material and that they would be returning in early 2006 with songs from a new album. He also hinted at new material from side project Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution. Streetlight even gave a nod to their former band, Catch 22, playing the first two verses of “Point-Counterpoint” and then transitioning into Catch 22’s “Keasbey Nights” before returning to the last verse of “Point.”
After playing all but one track off of “Numb,” Streetlight bid Salt Lake goodnight. The encore began about 30 seconds later, with repeating guitar chords coming from offstage, building until the band returned to the stage with “If and When We Rise Again.”
The show was worth the wait.
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