Less Than Jake,Goldfinger - House of Blues July 29th 2008 Even though it was a Tuesday night, that didn’t stop me and the rest of San Diego old school Punk/Ska fans from cruising down to the House of Blues to see Less than Jake and Goldfinger rock the house. Unfortunately, due to getting out of work late and the usual parking fiasco associated with Downtown I wasn’t able to catch either of the two opening bands.  In fact, I was there just in time to get settled in to catch Goldfinger’s set before Less than Jake was to take the stage.

As soon as Goldfinger started their setlist I could feel the “ska” in the air…having seen Goldfinger a handful of times before, I must say I was a bit disappointed with their choice of songs on the setlist.  They opened up the set with "Answers" from their self-titled CD and also played fan-favorites: "Here in Your Bedroom", "Counting the Days" and of course "Mable" where they invited everyone up on stage to sing along with them.  Even though they didn’t play some of my favorite classic Goldfinger songs such as Question, "San Simeon" or "Anything" they still sounded great! Not only did they play extremely tight, they are super entertaining to watch on stage and usually have a few good jokes to tell in between songs.  I was impressed and ready to catch Less than Jake – a band that I have not seen since coming across them at Warped Tour years ago.

Less than Jake took the stage blazin’ with the horn section in full force.  To my surprise, I actually recognized 2 of the 1st 3 songs that were played.  One of them being the classic “Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts.”  They had the crowd pumped from the get-go and didn’t let them slow down.  Although I didn’t recognize many other songs, it seemed like they were playing many of the old fan favorites since I could look around and see the masses singing along. 

Overall it was a nice change of pace to see a couple “ska” bands and a little skankin’ going on…reminded me a bit of the good ol’ Epicentre days seeing Buck-O-Nine all the time.  Both bands this night sounded great and being that this was the 1st time for me to see a full Less than Jake set, I will be keeping my eyes out for the next time they come through town.

-Cole