About Last Night: The Pietasters at the Black Cat
Photo gallery after the jump.
Last night was a pretty big deal for DMVicious. Our first real foray into the local music scene was during the heat of the D.C. Ska era in the early 2000s. As such, D.C. ska legends, the Pietasters, are very near and dear to our heart.
In 2001, the Pietasters lost its bass player, Todd Eckhardt, to a viral heart infection. Eckhardt was one of the principal songwriters for the band and his loss left a lasting impact on the band and the D.C. ska community at large. Last night, D.C. Brau and Ska Brewing co-sponsored a benefit show at the Black Cat for the Todd Eckhardt Scholarship at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
In honor of the D.C. Ska legends, D.C. Brau and Ska Brewing also used the event to debut their new collaboration, Tasters’ Choice; a Doppelback brewed with coffee. In case you are wondering: Yes, it is delicious.
Before the band took the stage, Eckhardt’s father addressed what turned out to be a large crowd–especially for a Wednesday night. Immediately after those remarks, the Pietasters took the stage and announced they would only be playing songs that were written by Eckhardt.
The band opened the set with “Freak Show,” a high-energy romper that usually comes later in most Pietasters sets. As the set continued to wind through the band’s deceptively deep catalog, we were taken back by how many of the band’s songs were written by Eckhardt.
Once the band started the intro to “Out All Night,” the energy level inside the Black Cat hit fever pitch and never looked back. Building on that energy, the set came to a rowdy close with “Wasted.” When the band came back out for an encore of “Drinking and Driving,” “Somebody,” and “Factory,” things went from wild, to straight-up ape shit (We got pics to prove it!).
There is something about the crowd at a ska show that you will not find at most other shows. No one stands around worrying about how cool they look. The pits are wild, but everyone is having fun. It is not a bunch of aggro douche bags flailing their fists around, it is just a bunch of drunk ass people dancing and skanking their asses off. That is a lot more fun if you ask us.
Evidence of D.C.’s once thriving ska scene were everywhere last night at the Black Cat. For any number of reasons, the scene has significantly diminished over the past five years or so, but it was great to see a lot of familiar faces in the house last night acting as if nothing had changed.
The entire evening was chock-full of nostalgia, and we cannot think of a better way to honor the life of Todd Eckhardt than to get rowdy with the Pietasters.
DMVicious 
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