The bands were horny, the boys were rude and the girls were skanks. For those who enjoy ska music, it was a perfect setting Tuesday night when third-wave pioneers Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish blew it out at Jannus Landing in St. Pete. Even the courtyard of the old Detroit Hotel recalled notions of the original ska artists of Jamaica who performed on the backs of flatbed trucks in the alleyways of Kingston.



Every 15 years or so, ska peeks its pork-pie-hatted head from the underground to become the latest trend in music. The last time this happened in the mid-90s, bands like Less than Jake and Reel Big Fish were credited with bringing the bouncing brass sound beyond the beach culture of southern California and into the hearts of the MTV generation.

Joining them on the ‘’Shout Out Loud’’ tour were two bands that have been around a while themselves. Against All Authority, a punk-ska outfit from South Florida, has been bringing their DIY ethic and politically-oriented message around the country since 1992 and Streetlight Manifesto, the latest project from the members of another 3rd wave legend, Catch 22, rounded out the tour.

(It was a shame I missed them, but beer and nachos were calling.)

Deferring to Less than Jake’s homestate status, Reel Big Fish opened up with a set that kept the crowd bouncing, mixing in their latest material from Monkeys for Nothing, and the Chimps for Free with old staples like Sell Out and Beer. Their setlist included a handful of their trademark cover songs such as Aha’s Take On Me interspersed with frontman Aaron Barret’s self-deprecating humor on subjects like getting dumped for a chick and his weakness for tubetops.

After the crowd had been bounced into a frenzy, Less than Jake skanked them in circles. No other band seems to capture the growing-up-in-a-small-Florida-town angst like the guys from Gainesville. Like RBF, Less than Jake was promoting their latest album, In with the Out Crowd, and they sprinkled new offerings like We the Unispired and Overrated in between old favorite’s like The Science of Selling Yourself Short and She’s Gonna Break Soon. Less than Jake even reached back deep into their catalogs to play several songs off their 1995 release, Pezcore.

By the end of the night, I was soaked in sweat and overpriced beer and I am pretty sure my nose was broken while dancing around in circles. Despite those minor setbacks it was a tremendous show. The courtyard at Jannus proved to be the perfect setting to capture the blaring horns coming from stage and even though most of the crowd wasn’t even in kindergarden when these guys started making records, they managed to stay true to the ska roots with more checkerboards than a retirement home and the occasional odor of Jamaican culture rising from the audience.