It's Sunday morning and I feel like I'm 17 again -- smack dab in the middle of the all-ages third wave ska scene that existed around Humboldt County when I was in high school. Only this time I'm 30, and feel like I'm high on a weekend that involved two-tone ska band The Toasters, who played Friday night at the Red Fox Tavern in Eureka, and dirty reggae band The Aggrolites, who played last night at Humboldt Brews in Arcata.

Friday night's show, put on by Norm at Bad Kitty Presents, started out with Pressure Beat Soundsystem's DJs Rotten and Gabe Pressure (disclosure: the latter is my sweetie) spinning classic reggae, ska and soul, to get the dance floor moving. The duo spins similar selections every Monday night at the Jambalaya in Arcata, all on vinyl. The Smashed Glass played a nice (but possibly overly long) set of Irish folk-punk, then the Toasters came up and the crowd broke into a complete frenzy.

The Toasters (who basically consist of Robert "Bucket" Hingley and a cast of rotating band members, depending on the tour) pretty much have their live show down to a science. Lead singer and guitarist Buck knows how to drive a crowd wild, and played everyone's favorite Toasters songs. After the show ended, the crowd -- a lot of new faces who seem to have come out of the woodwork for the show -- left satisfied and in good spirits.

Last night saw a number of return fans, mixed with a lot of folks who even differed from the first night (Where are all these folks on Monday nights?). Unlike the Aggrolites' last stop in Humboldt, which was nearly two years ago, they didn't have an opening band this time around, but opted instead to play two hearty sets of their "dirty reggae," which is sort of a mix of roots reggae and punk -- high energy, distorted, and easy to sing along to. Both sets felt, in a positive way, like listening to a highly skilled DJ, who's able to beat-match from song-to-song -- one tune would end, and instead of stopping to wait for the obligatory cheers and applause, the drummer (who, incidentally, plays together with the Aggros' new, high-energy guitar player in a band called the Bohunks) would throw down a fill that worked straight into the next song on the playlist. Interestingly, while the Aggrolites have a new album (a compilation of a series of 7" records they've been releasing over the last few months on Young Cub Records) due out at the end of this month, the stuck to playing only songs from their first few albums. The energy stayed high (in so many ways) the entire night, and the room was muggy at the end of the evening.

Here are photos from both evenings:

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