Tim Armstrong of Rancid, performing at The Showbox SoDo on Friday night.Though it seemed like most of the crowd was there more for headliners Rancid than anyone else, that wasn’t the case for me; I was all about Less Than Jake.They didn’t disappoint — it was a funny, well played show. I mean, where else can you see a guitarist sporting a Burger King crown and a mustachioed audience member pulled up on stage and asked to dance “like he has cerebral palsy?” All those years on the road have only made LTJ better showmen. And I’ve never seen anyone rock out so hard with a trombone, or egg on a mosh pit as aggressively with a saxophone.Vocalist and guitarist Chris Demakes made some hilarious faces in between singing, playing guitar and calling out crowd members who weren’t as in to the show as he thought they should be. There were jokes too! Some of the one-liner gems included “If we were Good Charlotte we’d be rich and fucking models, but we’re just fat and fucking lazy” and “C’mon! Make the pit bigger than Chris’s ex-girlfriend!”Chris Demakes of Less Than Jake performing during the band’s set on Friday night.The crowd was also informed that the show was being recorded for an upcoming Less Than Jake DVD release — so if you missed it Friday night, you can even catch it again. And, to top it all off, they ended with a kick-ass performance of “Plastic Cup Politics,” one of both my and drummer/songwriter Vinnie Fiorello’s favorites. (Read an interview with Fiorello, coming soon.)To be honest, I only stuck around for a few songs of Rancid’s set. But I was there long enough to hear “Roots Radicals,” and that was enough for me.
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