Monday nightap sold-out with Rome concert at came down to one person: Rome Ramirez.
Ramirez is the new lead singer for Sublime, the seminal ska-punk band filed under Music To Smoke Weed To. The band’s original singer, Bradley Nowell, died at age 28 after a heroin overdose in 1996, and the band has been inactive – save for a couple reputation-ruining side projects – since then.
So how was Ramirez on Monday night? He lacked the stage presence and potent, penetrating vocals of Nowell. He seemed comfortable on the stage, but he was hardly charismatic. His voice sounded fine, and all the notes were right, but he wasn’t singing with conviction – and how hard is it to forcefully tell stories about smoking two joints in the morning?
Tons of smiling, swerving dudes – and their wasted girlfriends – showed up to see Sublime 2.0, and while Ramirez was a critical disappointment, nobody seemed to mind much. Much of the audience treated the set like a social opportunity, and most of the audience was partaking in some sort of smoking ritual.
It was clear by the crowd’s youthful median age that this was many of their first Sublime concert – and thatap a special occasion, even if you don’t like the band’s music. The crowd was stoked to sing-along to “Get Ready,” the curious opening track and the unspoken cue to light up. And sing along – and light up – they did.
But the band itself was predictable in its quest to reintroduce itself to its ever-growing fanbase. The set was predictably backloaded, and they didn’t get around to “Badfish” until they started wrapping things up. And who knows what they were trying to accomplish by opening with “Get Ready,” one of the weaker, less-recognized song in their catalog.
Opening with that track was an anticlimactic moment when it should have been a booming revelation, ie, “Hey, everybody. I know we haven’t seen you for nearly 15 years, but we’re here to party with … this totally lame song we wrote.”
The thing is, Sublime actually wrote some great songs. When they launched into “Wrong Way,” the crowd lost all composure. “40 Oz. to Freedom,” while a ridiculous song, caused a crazy, almost heartfelt sing along that felt like a mass tribute to Nowell. Many of the band’s songs are trite and silly and superfluous, sure, but they were perfect for frat parties and days at the beach – not unlike a killer Britney Spears song. Aside from Ramirez’s lack of frontman studdom, this wasn’t a band that seemed psyched to be back on a stage. And given the outrageous number of kids outside looking for tickets – and the sold-out audience that packed the Fillmore – thatap a damn shame.
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Ricardo Baca is the founder and co-editor of and an award-winning critic and journalist at The Denver Post. He is also the executive director of the , Colorado’s premier indie music festival. Follow his whimsies at , his live music habit at and his iTunes addictions at .
Jennifer Cohen is a Lakewood-based freelance photographer and contributor to Reverb. Check out her .
