Boss Hog – Maxwell’s, Hoboken, NJ, US (3 December 2008)

Boss Hog show at Maxwell’s, 1039 Washington Street, Hoboken, NJ, US with Talk Normal on 3 December 2008.

It’d been eight years since Boss Hog had graced a stage, but you couldn’t tell it from the band’s show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken last Wednesday (December 3). If anything, the only cobwebs being blown out were coming from the club’s sound system, which couldn’t seem to get the mix in the monitors guitarist Jon Spencer desired without feeding back.

But while Spencer griped between songs about the sound problems—admittedly, if this had been a Pussy Galore show that would have been one thing, but the noise was beyond irksome—his wife and Boss Hog boss Cristina Martinez seemed mostly unfazed, more caught up in the thrill of playing out again than concerned with technical issues. That thrill went both ways, as the band ripped through an hour-long set that showed it had indeed been too long that they’d been away. Moreover, generally favoring 1995’s self-titled record over their last output, 2000’s lukewarm electronic soup, Whiteout, this performance was better than what I remember the show I caught from that 2000 tour being. Better still were the songs from even further back that dotted the set, like “The Black Betty,” from the Girl+ EP, that started off the night, and which showed the band knows it strengths.

While Spencer has made records with his Blues Explosion and side project Heavy Trash, keyboardist Mark Boyce has been playing with G. Love, and rhythm section Hollis Queens and Jens Jourgensen at least put out a second Lo-Hi record in 2002, Martinez has been dormant. But it didn’t show in her voice, retaining both its purr and its growl, as well as its potent equation of half come-on and half fuck-off. While the show was no doubt something of a warm-up for the bigger realm of Manhattan’s Bowery Ballroom next week, what we got was at once personal and powerful, cuts like “Winn Coma” and “Ski Bunny” marked by a heat already white hot. Never the most prolific band, Boss Hog’s eight-year absence didn’t necessarily mean anything, but now that they’re “back,” I can only hope they stay awhile as this was too good not to signify something more.” – agitreader.com

Live Photos: Tim Griffin (via brooklynvegan.com)

Poster Design: Greg Harrison