Friday night Less Than Jake’s Summer Circus Tour rolled into St. Louis at The Pageant. St. Louis was the second to last stop on the thirty-one date tour that started on June 7th in Atlanta. On this leg of the tour the band brought along the legendary genre bending Fishbone, The Suicide Machines, and Catbite.

As soon as I heard about this tour I knew I had to go. I had seen both Less Than Jake and Fishbone before but knew that this was a show not to be missed. It has been a while since seeing either of the bands. Last time I saw Less Than Jake was in 2016 on the Vans Warped Tour and last time I caught a Fishbone show was also 2016 at The Duck room in Blueberry Hill.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Catbite opened the show, followed by Detroit’s The Suicide Machines. During their sets fans could catch glimpses of Fishbone frontman Angelo Moore running around amongst the crowd. The Suicide machines frontman Jason Navarro made sure that by the time their set was finished the crowd would be amped up as as soon as he took the stage he instructed the crowd to start a circle pit.

The band closed out their set with ‘Racist Piece of Shit‘.

As soon as members of Fishbone started to take the stage you could feel the energy that they bring starting to swell. Angelo Moore, dressed in a red and black top, a red kilt and a matching red bowler hat, grabbed the mic and said this set is called ‘Fuck President Trump’ before the band kicked into ‘Party at Ground Zero‘. Talking to a fan the following night at Coheed and Cambria he said that Moore reminds him of a cartoon caricature brought to life and that is probably the best way to describe him as he has boundless energy and his stage presence is practically unmatched from any band that I have seen. Keyboardist Kayleigh Malloy of Catbite accompanied the band on saxophone. Catbites Brittany Luna accompanied the band for ‘Lyin’ Ass Bitch‘. Angelo’s daughter Cheyenne came out and played saxophone and sang on ‘Skankin’ to the Beat’ and closed out the set with ‘Racist Piece of Shit‘. After their set fans could find Moore and a few other members of the band at the merch table talking with fans, getting pictures taken, and having things signed. I happened to have brought an 8×10 picture that I had shot with black and white film back in 2011 at City Museum just in the off chance that I ran into Moore and was able to get it signed.

Less Than Jake came out firing on all cylinders and never really took the foot of the gas. The band opened with ‘Gainesville Rock City‘ and followed it with ‘Lie to Me‘. With the opening of ‘Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts‘ I started to feel sorry for the bouncers in the pit as only two were working it and that surprised me with it being a ska-punk show. Sure enough as soon as the song kicked in you could see crowd surfers starting up. Singer/guitarist Chris DeMakes joked a few times during the set when the band would take a slight talking break that it was for the fans as they were not as young as they used to be. He also talked about playing small venues in St. Louis and his first experience walking into Pop’s in Sauget, IL at 4am and people sitting at the bar still getting shitfaced. He said that he had also beenhaving people on the internet say that he is not dressing like someone in their late 40’s to which singer/bassist Roger Lima commented that he still dresses like he is twenty-seven and pointed to his Super Mario Brothers shirt. DeMakes even brought up Lima ‘s love of cartoons and Lima said that right now his favorite is Bob’s Burger’s. In the 80’s it was The Flintstones and the Jetsons and the 90’s was The Animaniacs. The band followed up with a cover of The Animaniacs theme song. The band closed out the night with ‘Last One Out of Liberty City‘, ‘Help Save the Youth of America From Exploding‘, and ‘Look What Happened’.