CoventryCat86
Corresponding authority
Some of you may already know I’m a huge Dropkick Murphys, Street Dogs and Flogging Molly fan and because of that, people have suggested that I check out The Tossers. The Tossers have actually been around longer than the other three groups I mentioned are not quite as well known as Flogging Molly or DKM.
I started collecting their CDs earlier in the year and the first time couple of times I saw them at a show, they were warming up for the Street Dogs in July of this year. In August, I saw them warm up for the Dropkick Murphys. Unfortunately, when a band warms up for a main act, they usually only play for 45 minutes or so and are lucky if they can fit eight or nine songs in that short amount of time.
So this September, they announced a short tour where they’d be headlining in the northeast and I looked at the schedule and said “Hey, I can make at least five of those shows!” so I planned a little mini-vacation starting the week of September 17th and saw their shows in:
Portland, ME
Burlington, VT
Providence, RI
Boston, MA
Asbury Park, NJ
Between Portland and Burlington, I had time to meet DevilDoc for lunch in Concord, NH, he started a thread about that. :laugh:
The Tossers formed in Chicago in the early 1990s and almost all of the members were born and grew up on the south side. The newest member of the group is the fiddle player Rebecca who is originally from Wisconsin. They have five full length CDs and a five-song EP.
Their CDs are:
Communication and Conviction (2001)
Long Dim Road (2000)
First League Out From Land (the 5 song EP) (2001)
Purgatory (2003)
The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death (2005)
Agony (2007)
Communication and Conviction is actually a compilation of their first two CDs “The Pint of No Return” and “We’ll Never Be Sober Again” which are no longer available plus three songs they added when they released this CD including their version of "Irish Rover."
First League Out From Land contains one original song (the title cut) and four others which they didn’t write. What’s interesting though is when they released Purgatory, they recorded a slightly different (longer) version of First League Out From Land and included it on Purgatory.
Their two latest CDs are on Victory Records which is a major independent label. The other CDs are from a company called Thick Records (a smaller independent label) which is why they are kind of hard to get at this point. Recently though, The Tossers re-released Communication and Conviction through a different publishing company called Paddy on the Spot so it’s easier to get now.
Anyway, on to the shows. What’s very interesting about The Tossers’ shows is that they have a standard “guide” for a set list then add in songs here and there, based on audience requests or what the band wants to do. Each night, they played at least 17 songs and a couple of times, they did 24 songs.
Here’s a list of what they played every night I saw them:
Aye Sir (Communication and Conviction)
Did It All For You (Agony)
Siobban (Agony)
I’ve Pursued Nothing (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
No Loot, No Booze, No Fun (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
Never Enough (Agony)
The Sheep in the Boots (Agony)
Galway Races (Tradtional and The Pogues)
Maidrin Rua/Tell Me Ma (Communication and Conviction)
Goodmorning Da (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
Preab San Ol (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
Faraway (Purgatory)
They played these three or four nights:
Buckets of Beer (Communication and Conviction)
The Crutch (Long Dim Road)
The Pub (Long Dim Road)
From this point on, each night was different and you never knew what they were going to play. I specifically asked them to play Nantucket Girl's Song at the Burlington show and First League Out From Land at the Providence show and they were nice enough to do them. They hadn’t played either of them in a long time and Tony “T” Duggins, the front man and mandolin player had to make sure he remembered the mandolin parts.
They also played a variety of different songs usually only one of the nights I saw them. Some of these included classic traditional Irish songs like:
Black Velvet Band
Seven Drunken Nights
D’Hampton Worm
Dicey Riley
Camptown Races
The Parting Glass
Black is the Color
The Wind That Shakes The Barley Down
Paddy Works On The Railway
And some of their classic songs which they rarely play like:
First League Out From Land
Nantucket Girl’s Song
Altercations
When You Get Here
A Night On Earth
Monday Morning
IMO, the best thing I saw during the whole week was on Thursday night at the show in Boston, T Duggins took the stage solo and sang a classic Eric Bogle song from 1972 “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” which is an anti war song about an Austrailian soldier in World War I. Sean MacGowan's (The Pogues) version of this song is probably the best known, mostly for the way he sings this with strong feeling and emotion but I’ll tell ya, T did an absolutely EXCELLENT job with this song, it was very moving and almost had the crowd in tears.
Before and after each show, I was able to talk to each of the band members and their three support people, Dave the bus driver, John the merchandise guy and Justin, the equipment manager. I gotta tell ya, these are the nicest and most gracious musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting and talking to. I learned quite a bit about the band’s history and some of the ins and outs of what it’s like for them on the road. The Tossers tour bus is an older Eagle coach bus that is set up to sleep twelve people and every week or so, they’ll stay in a hotel but they usually just sleep on the bus. On Wedensday night (Sept. 19th) I figured I’d offer to let them stay at my house if they wanted to since I live close to Providence, RI. I figured they would appreciate the gesture and say they were all set BUT they surprised me by accepting my offer. They followed me home and we had a great time visiting, listening to KISS and Cheap Trick CDs, drinking and smoking cigars. :thumbs:
If you ever have the chance to see The Tossers, don’t pass it up. If you’ve never heard of them and are thinking about taking a chance on one of their CDs, buy their newest one “Agony.” My personal favorite is “Purgatory” and the funny thing is that it’s their least popular one BUT once you become a hardcore fan (like me) you realize that this one is classic Tossers with a couple of their best songs (Faraway, Nantucket Girl’s Song, First League Out From Land, Chicago) that you must have.
I started collecting their CDs earlier in the year and the first time couple of times I saw them at a show, they were warming up for the Street Dogs in July of this year. In August, I saw them warm up for the Dropkick Murphys. Unfortunately, when a band warms up for a main act, they usually only play for 45 minutes or so and are lucky if they can fit eight or nine songs in that short amount of time.
So this September, they announced a short tour where they’d be headlining in the northeast and I looked at the schedule and said “Hey, I can make at least five of those shows!” so I planned a little mini-vacation starting the week of September 17th and saw their shows in:
Portland, ME
Burlington, VT
Providence, RI
Boston, MA
Asbury Park, NJ
Between Portland and Burlington, I had time to meet DevilDoc for lunch in Concord, NH, he started a thread about that. :laugh:
The Tossers formed in Chicago in the early 1990s and almost all of the members were born and grew up on the south side. The newest member of the group is the fiddle player Rebecca who is originally from Wisconsin. They have five full length CDs and a five-song EP.
Their CDs are:
Communication and Conviction (2001)
Long Dim Road (2000)
First League Out From Land (the 5 song EP) (2001)
Purgatory (2003)
The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death (2005)
Agony (2007)
Communication and Conviction is actually a compilation of their first two CDs “The Pint of No Return” and “We’ll Never Be Sober Again” which are no longer available plus three songs they added when they released this CD including their version of "Irish Rover."
First League Out From Land contains one original song (the title cut) and four others which they didn’t write. What’s interesting though is when they released Purgatory, they recorded a slightly different (longer) version of First League Out From Land and included it on Purgatory.
Their two latest CDs are on Victory Records which is a major independent label. The other CDs are from a company called Thick Records (a smaller independent label) which is why they are kind of hard to get at this point. Recently though, The Tossers re-released Communication and Conviction through a different publishing company called Paddy on the Spot so it’s easier to get now.
Anyway, on to the shows. What’s very interesting about The Tossers’ shows is that they have a standard “guide” for a set list then add in songs here and there, based on audience requests or what the band wants to do. Each night, they played at least 17 songs and a couple of times, they did 24 songs.
Here’s a list of what they played every night I saw them:
Aye Sir (Communication and Conviction)
Did It All For You (Agony)
Siobban (Agony)
I’ve Pursued Nothing (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
No Loot, No Booze, No Fun (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
Never Enough (Agony)
The Sheep in the Boots (Agony)
Galway Races (Tradtional and The Pogues)
Maidrin Rua/Tell Me Ma (Communication and Conviction)
Goodmorning Da (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
Preab San Ol (Valley of the Shadow of Death)
Faraway (Purgatory)
They played these three or four nights:
Buckets of Beer (Communication and Conviction)
The Crutch (Long Dim Road)
The Pub (Long Dim Road)
From this point on, each night was different and you never knew what they were going to play. I specifically asked them to play Nantucket Girl's Song at the Burlington show and First League Out From Land at the Providence show and they were nice enough to do them. They hadn’t played either of them in a long time and Tony “T” Duggins, the front man and mandolin player had to make sure he remembered the mandolin parts.
They also played a variety of different songs usually only one of the nights I saw them. Some of these included classic traditional Irish songs like:
Black Velvet Band
Seven Drunken Nights
D’Hampton Worm
Dicey Riley
Camptown Races
The Parting Glass
Black is the Color
The Wind That Shakes The Barley Down
Paddy Works On The Railway
And some of their classic songs which they rarely play like:
First League Out From Land
Nantucket Girl’s Song
Altercations
When You Get Here
A Night On Earth
Monday Morning
IMO, the best thing I saw during the whole week was on Thursday night at the show in Boston, T Duggins took the stage solo and sang a classic Eric Bogle song from 1972 “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda” which is an anti war song about an Austrailian soldier in World War I. Sean MacGowan's (The Pogues) version of this song is probably the best known, mostly for the way he sings this with strong feeling and emotion but I’ll tell ya, T did an absolutely EXCELLENT job with this song, it was very moving and almost had the crowd in tears.
Before and after each show, I was able to talk to each of the band members and their three support people, Dave the bus driver, John the merchandise guy and Justin, the equipment manager. I gotta tell ya, these are the nicest and most gracious musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting and talking to. I learned quite a bit about the band’s history and some of the ins and outs of what it’s like for them on the road. The Tossers tour bus is an older Eagle coach bus that is set up to sleep twelve people and every week or so, they’ll stay in a hotel but they usually just sleep on the bus. On Wedensday night (Sept. 19th) I figured I’d offer to let them stay at my house if they wanted to since I live close to Providence, RI. I figured they would appreciate the gesture and say they were all set BUT they surprised me by accepting my offer. They followed me home and we had a great time visiting, listening to KISS and Cheap Trick CDs, drinking and smoking cigars. :thumbs:
If you ever have the chance to see The Tossers, don’t pass it up. If you’ve never heard of them and are thinking about taking a chance on one of their CDs, buy their newest one “Agony.” My personal favorite is “Purgatory” and the funny thing is that it’s their least popular one BUT once you become a hardcore fan (like me) you realize that this one is classic Tossers with a couple of their best songs (Faraway, Nantucket Girl’s Song, First League Out From Land, Chicago) that you must have.
What kinda sucks about The Tossers and The Briggs warming up is they only play for a little over a half an hour each so you don't get to see them play very many songs. The DKMs though will be playing a full 1 hour and 40 minute, 26+ song set. I've seen the DKMs three times in the past couple of months so that set list is pretty much the same as it will be this Sunday in Vermont.
