PALOOKA Invades Oast House...
...and Brings Some Old Friends Along
What more can you ask for on a Friday night? Progressive RAWK, weird time signatures, some great covers, plenty of original material and three very good musicians who apparently haven't forgotten how to play together.
PALOOKA returned to the stage Friday night at Niagara Oast House Brewers, continuing what seems to be a gradual return from a band that spent a number of years largely dormant.
Oast House on a Friday night appears to be a hot spot for a young, attractive crowd regardless of who happens to be playing. Friday's crowd was no exception.
Standing in line to get in, I watched security ask everyone ahead of me for ID. When my turn came, I dutifully held mine out. The security guy took one look at me — and presumably my white goatee — and said, “No, you're good.”
Fair enough.
The young Friday-night crowd was about to be invaded by a contingent of fifty-somethings — and perhaps a few on the other side of sixty — who were there specifically to see PALOOKA.
It made for an interesting mix.
A lot of the younger crowd talked through the music and seemed largely indifferent to what was happening on stage. They weren't necessarily being rude; many simply weren't there for the band. They're probably more accustomed to a playlist or a DJ, neither of which expects applause when a song ends.
The old-school PALOOKA fans were another story.
There were inside jokes that had some of us laughing while sailing completely over the heads of most of the room. It didn't matter. Scattered among the much larger crowd, the people who came to see the band made themselves heard and enthusiastically cheered them on.
For me, there was another bonus to the night: seeing some dear old friends I hadn't seen in far too long. In some ways, PALOOKA's reunion onstage created a small reunion of its own out in the crowd.
And PALOOKA gave us plenty to cheer about.
Joe Lapinski on guitar and vocals, Jay Peters on drums and vocals and Eron Stroud on bass and vocals sounded remarkably tight for three musicians who don't actually play together very often anymore.
Perhaps that shouldn't be surprising. All three have remained active musicians, keeping their chops up playing with other people. Put three good musicians who spent years playing together back in the same room and apparently some things don't disappear.
The set lists moved freely between PALOOKA originals and material from Neil Young, Ween, Joe Jackson, Prince and others, without ever making the night feel like a typical night of bar-band covers.
A late highlight was Curtis Mayfield's “Move On Up.” The whole band tore into it, but Stroud in particular played his ass off, driving a performance that was one of the night's standouts.
Then there was “Nore” — that's Eron backwards, for those not in on that particular joke.
This was PALOOKA at its progressive-rock best: shifting time signatures, twists and turns and the kind of arrangement where everybody has to know exactly where everybody else is going.
Peters was on fire. I've known Jay pretty much my entire life, and I'm not sure I've ever seen him play better. Watching the three of them navigate the changes while keeping everything tight was a reminder of just how good these guys are.
They closed with Prince's “Purple Rain,” sending the old-school contingent home happy — and perhaps leaving at least a few members of the regular Friday-night crowd wondering who the hell these three guys were.
PALOOKA's February appearance at Helliwell Hall had already suggested that their recent reunion might not be a one-off. Friday night reinforced it. One of the band members even dropped a hint that another Helliwell Hall show may be coming in another six months or so.
If that's true, I'll be there.
PALOOKA still got it.