The Legwarmers - Live Review

Oh my, It’s the 80s all over again!  The self-proclaimed ultimate 80s tribute band, the Legwarmers, blew out The Trocadero on Saturday night.  BRP was there, has the pictures to prove it, and is now handicapped because he danced his butt off!  And hey, I got a new fisheye lens for my camera - check out the cool crowd shot below:

Let’s get things straight from the get go.  The Legwarmers don’t write their own music, but they picked out some great songs (and some not so great) from the 80s and played most of them perfectly.  They have a great name that totally fits the decade - for women, at least, I personally didn’t get into legwarmers until the 90s.  A crowd of partygoers follows the band around and BRINGS IT so that it is one totally fun night.  And there is no pretentious b.s. involved – it’s the music, the scene and the good times which drive this band.  And the band is totally into it, with moves and jams that are just fantastic. 

I’m going to direct you to their website to see the songs that the band typically picks from to play, and for more info about them.  It’s not all arena rock and pop/dance tunes that make up the show.  I had forgotten how many great new wave songs were really from the early 80s, but the band had not, and they chose some particularly choice ones to play.  Anyway, believe me when I say that you would know all of these songs, and would like most of them. 

I normally don’t go to tribute band shows (although the AC/DC cover band Hells Bells, whom I saw in Cape Coral, was worth the $0 in admission that I did not pay to see them).  But this was a birthday party blowout, and it beat the crap out of the typical wedding/bar mitzvah circuit bands playing The Happy Song and Celebrate.  Does anyone remember the Skip Castro Band?  Johnny Sportcoat & The Casuals?  The X-Raves?  Nasty Habits?  All were great early to mid-80s cover bands who played many of these same songs.  So for me, it was the purest of nostalgia, but in a good way, not like going to your 25th high school reunion and realizing that the hot chick from high school now has 4 kids, 2 ex-husbands, and hopefully, a 130 pound tumor that can be removed rather than a backseat full of Jack In The Box trash, because it’s either one or the other.

I danced until late, late into the night, slept the dreams of rock and roll, and woke up with a smile on my face.  All that for $15!  That, my friends, proves how great rock is for us geezers who still love it.  Hey, and check out this guy – talk about moves.  He was actually kind of a drunken pain in the neck most of the evening - in fact, he was pawing up these women who were standing by us (and, sadly, the women were letting him - what's up, girls?) - but doing the splits in jeans when overweight deserves a mention.

One last thing about the venue.  The Trocadero looks super cool inside.  But its Chinatown location means it’s hard to park (and expensive), and the bars are PACKED and slow moving.  And the bathrooms are old and cramped.  Otherwise, it is a pretty cool hangout.

Here are the rest of the photos.  The crowd was super cool, too, many of them dressed to kill, 80s style – or at least what they thought was 80s style.  It was pretty campy, but happy times for all.  I will see you again really soon, ok, dear ones?  As I used to say all the time in the 80s, take it easy.