Here Are The Sonics... Again!

Norton Records' 25th Anniversary looked like a great time. Lots of great rock and soul acts, all over the course of a single weekend in NYC.

However, for a variety of reasons, the weekend didn't pan out for me, and I had to pass - with the exception of the Sonics Saturday matinee show at Maxwell's in Hoboken.

I saw the Sonics in 2007 at Warsaw in Brooklyn, where they appeared at part of the Cavestomp! festival. It was the first show they had done in over 30 years, and it was quite the event to their cult following. Thankfully, unlike many reunited bands, the Sonics delivered a good performance, even though they were without their original rhythm section.

Now, four years later, here they are at Maxwell's, with another new bass player. Don Wilhelm (of 60's Northwest band the Daily Flash) had been replaced by Freddy Dennis. No matter - they sounded as good as, if not better than, they did at Warsaw.

Dennis took the lead vocal on a few songs, including "Cinderella." He did a fine job - on "Dirty Robber," he sounded eerily like late Wailers keyboardist/vocalist Kent Morrill - but I really wish Sonics mainman Gerry Roslie had tackled at least "Cinderella." (He hadn't sung it at Warsaw, either - Wilhelm did.)

Speaking of Roslie, he sang great when he did sing, and the band as whole seemed relaxed and confident.

They also did four new songs, which they played well, but none of them were a match for the old classics, and they definitely sounded more like 70's hard rock than 60's garage-punk. My friend Matt Berlyant liked them more than I did, so I'd recommend his Big Takeover write-up if you want to find out more about them. Still, all and all, well worth the trip to Hoboken.