W.S. Walcott Medicine Show

The Toasters (2024-04-21)

Robert “Bucket” Hingley moved to New York City from his home country of England in the late 70s and formed The Toasters in 1981 after experiencing the juggernaut that was The English Beat at Roseland Ballroom.  I, too, fell in love with SKA back then largely due to those early shows and albums from the likes of The Beat and, of course, The Specials.  Unfortunately, those 2 tone bands just didn’t make it over here often enough to satiate my SKA jonesing.  Fortunately, there was Hingley and his Toasters and ultimately his Moon Ska Records to satisfy my skanking needs. I last saw the band, I’m guessing about 10 years ago at Brooklyn’s now closed Knitting Factory so I was super stoked to get to catch them on Sunday at This Is Not Croydon Fest.  Following a stacked lineup and preceeding legendary So Cal Agrolites, clearly the pressure would be on.  But Hingley and the rest of The Toasters proved that there’s no such thing as “Too Much Pressure”.  While SKA is not the kind of music us older folk can just ease their way through, Bucket showed us all that the gray beards can still skank with the best of them. The Toasters put on an energized frenetic 1 hour set that had everyone at Broken Goblet Brewery in an absolute frenzy.  What a spectacular performance!