So why is The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ Live From the Middle East on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
There are many themes that weave throughout this massive and audacious best 1,000 albums ever project, and one of them is a lean toward energetic music that’s equal parts aggressive and melodic and infectious.
Those qualities are exquisitely captured by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, recorded at their very peak while playing to a hometown crowd at The Middle East in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1997.
Those ingredients come together in the Bosstones’ unique blend – a recipe invented before the third-wave ska and punk explosion that followed – mixing borderline-caustic hardcore punk with brightly sublime ska, and it’s served up magically during their annual Hometown Throwdown.
As great as the Bosstones’ studio albums are – and you can check out the assortment of them that made the best 1,000 albums ever, including the incredible Devil’s Night Out (#48) – the loose, rollicking, and ecstatically joyful vibes that blast through all 22 tracks and just over an hour of music make this collection the best example of TMMBT’s music I could ever put in front of someone.
I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the Bosstones live many times – in upstate New York, Long Island, and on the Vans Warped Tour on both the East and West Coasts – and they never once disappointed.
I love that Live From the Middle East starts off with 30 seconds of anticipatory crowd noise and cheering. The energy pulsing out of that venue is palpable, and by the time the band launches into “1-2-8,” both the musicians and the crowd are clearly going bonkers, feeding off of one another’s vibes.
Here’s an important thing, too: I find the studio version of “1-2-8,” the album closer on Let’s Face It, TMMBT’s one “breakout” album, to be just… kind of fine. Can take or leave it.
But the version on Live From the Middle East is not just good; it’s insanely good.
It’s essentially the same song, but it’s energy energy energy.
And it’s one of the pure joys for me to showcase things just like this on this madcap and arguably ludicrous project.
The entire live album has the same impact. There’s not a single track on Live From the Middle East where I’d say, “No dude, you gotta go to the studio album for the better version of this one.”
The way the live tracks roll, rock, and collide into each other is also exceptionally well handled. Example: simply let “1-2-8” segue directly into the ecstatic madness of “Do Somethin’ Crazy.”
And this is a great way of explaining why I’ve listened to chunks of this album straight through during countless gym workouts over many years.
There are countless tiny moments that contribute to making Live From the Middle East one of the best live albums of all time.
One of them is when Dicky Barrett polls the audience by way of their reaction as to whether they want to hear “Dr. D” the “old way” or the “new way.” When the crowd clearly opts for the latter, Dicky complies, but only if “you can scream loud enough to impress Joe Gittleman, the bass fiddle man.”
Side note: my college pal, future flat mate on multiple continents and future best man Adam’s college roommate Dave is, if he’s to be believed, Joe Gittleman’s cousin. How’s that for a TMMBT factoid you won’t find anywhere else?
Most importantly, “Dr. D” the new way absolutely rips, transforming a very good studio version into a super sizzler of dangerously hot proportions.
More melodic (by Bosstones’ standards) early classics like “Hope I Never Lose My Wallet” and “Where’d You Go?” are swinging, fast, and loose, all good fun even when getting whimsical.
There are several other Let’s Face It songs on the album that point to the band mellowing ever so slightly at this point in their career. Of these, “Let’s Face It” is a standout.
I’ll close out this piece with a memory of seeing the Bosstones live back in the day.
I’ve written before about my first experience in seeing the band live outside of Albany, New York, so here I want to give a full shoutout and love to Ben Carr a.k.a. “the dancing guy.” While not a musician, he’s very much a part of TMMBT’s stage performance, doing his wild ska-type dancing thing. I love that Carr told Vice that one of his signature moves is called the “Hoof and Wing Step.”
At the Vans Warped Tour in San Francisco, I saw Carr fluidly catch a frisbee flung at him by someone in the audience during the performance and casually fire it back into the crowd.
Related: at the same show, Barrett stopped the proceedings at one point and harshly admonished those in the crowd who were throwing all kinds of things presumably at the band. He reminded everyone that the band members who play instruments are essentially defenseless while performing so that if anyone is so motivated to chuck something at the stage, aim it at himself.
The moment was pure Dicky: gruff, direct, and tongue in cheek all at once.
Pure Boston. Pure Bosstones.
Some stats & info about The Mighty Mighty Bosstones – Live From the Middle East
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Boston Bands, Rock Music, Ska Punk, Third Wave Ska Revival, Alternative Rock, Live Albums
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Live From the Middle East released? 1998
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #37 out of 1,000
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ Live From the Middle East on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ Live From the Middle East that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
One, two, what’s in the stew? Three, four, no one’s really sure.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.