Badfish

Pearl Street

Northampton

Feb. 21

NORTHAMPTON – Concertgoers who attended Saturday’s Badfish show at Northampton’s Pearl Street Nightclub were transported to the sunny shores of Long Beach, California within the first few notes played by the Sublime tribute band.

The heat from the red lights warmed the fans and made everybody move to the lines of the bass. The faces of all present were lit up and girls were reaching out their hands to Dave and Joel. The music brought the room to the LBC, but it was Badfish who kept the fans traveling on and brought the true spirit of Sublime to life once more.

Badfish, hailing from Rhode Island, cover all of the revolutionary songs that 90s ska/punk/hip-hop band Sublime played and inadvertently created an entirely new musical culture playing.

If an audience member was to close his or her eyes or turn a back to the stage, it would be all too easy to believe it was Bradley Nowell, Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh on stage, filling the club with music and making fans tap their feet to some clever, catchy hip-hop/ska tune. But with eyes on the stage, it was made apparent that these were not the Californians that created a music revolution a decade ago. Badfish is comprised of Joel on bass guitar, Dave on guitar and vocals, Scott on drums and Tyler on the keyboard. They looked like a punk rock band mostly because of Dave’s mohawk and their sneakers, but they played like Sublime and had the reggae influence vibrating through all of the songs.

On the set were hits like “Caress Me Down” and “Chica Me Tipo,” made famous by their integration of hip-hop and relaxed reggae sounds. Though recreating Sublime’s magic on these songs is difficult, Badfish pulled it off with ease. One of Sublime’s songs called “DJs” brought a huge motion through the floor as the soft beats crawled inside all of the happy bodies. “I won’t wait so long/ For you/ Stop your messin around/ Better think of your future,” the lyrics called out to fans.

The sold-out concert brought around 300 people together, singing the songs that they’ve made love or drank or smoked to. The bar downstairs assisted with the intoxicated eyes; the crowd seemed to believe they were really watching Bradley play his guitar. Their music was very smooth and created an atmosphere people dream of – feeling like you’re watching people sing about stuff that matters or about something you’ve felt and make it beautiful.

After they finished and started to pack their stuff everyone in the crowd started screaming “ONE MORE SONG!” and the band members all looked at each other and returned to stage to play “What I Got,” a song ultimately known by everyone who has ever heard of Sublime. A group of girls got on stage and shared a microphone singing “Early in the morning, risin’ to the street Light me up that cigarette and I strap shoes on my feet/ Got to find a reason, a reason things went wrong Got to find a reason why my money’s all gone” Everyone’s body started to rock to the drum kit bellowing beats and the lights started to make bodies sweat and glisten in the bright blues and reds that splayed out around the room.

After Bradley Nowell passed away in 1996 and the band split up, the music definitely lived on. The opportunity to hear those words from a group of guys so driven by Sublime was extremely awe-inspiring. When Dave, the lead singer of Badfish, was asked what he had to say to fans all he said was “Keep Sublime alive!”