I'm just in time, the show is starting, and this great mix of music with a ska sound but a hard-core center has got the crowd assembled in the lawn moshing and surfing, but Dicky Barrett, lead singer of the Bosstones, isn't a happy man. While the lawn folks are up-and-moving, the pavilion folks seemed ready for a nap rather than a ska band. Dicky wouldn't stand for this, nope, not at all, and he was off the stage and into the pavilion area. This should have been a sure-fire way to get the crowd going, but no, sit there they did. Seeming a little more upset, Dicky finds an empty seat, sits down, and chastises the crowd telling them that "If you're gonna just sit there, then I'm gonna just sit here too." And damn it, I think he was ready to do the Mighty Mighty Bosstones set from that seat, but the crowd started to stand, Nate Albert started wailing on guitar, and how could you just sit there when Ben Carr is dancing all over the stage (Carr has, what I think, could be one of the coolest jobs in the world. No instrument, listed in their press release as "Bosstone," he bounces all over the stage getting the crowd totally into the music that doesn't really need much help getting into.)

Finally it was party time, dancin' and singin', the crowd was awakened, I'm having a blast, and I'm listening closer and closer to the Bosstones and notice a difference between them and their cohorts that are proliferating the airwaves - not to put down the other radio-friendly ska bands, but The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are just super talented. With a mix of fantastic guitar jams by Albert, a super-tight horn section, and Dicky working a crowd like there is no tomorrow, it's good to hear talent in such fun music.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones is high up there on my list of highlights of Jamboree 97, and it's TWO MIGHTY MIGHTY THUMBS UP for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones.