Lithium Magazine

By: Sarah Myers

www.dirtyheads.com
www.myspace.com/dirtyheads
www.sublimewithrome.com
www.myspace.com/sublimewithrome

The first Sublime song I ever heard was “What I Got” and I was 12, on my way to go shopping for school. I remember hating it. As my music taste expanded I grew to love them and while it’s still not one of my favorite Sublime songs, there’s something to be said about this kind of nostalgia, especially when you don’t think you’ll ever get a chance to hear it live and not from a dive-bar’s cover band.

Opening for Sublime with Rome were The Dirty Heads, a five-piece reggae/hip-hop band from Southern California who are clearly heavily influenced by Sublime. Their newest single ‘Lay Me Down’, which features Rome, has blown up allover North America presenting them as a musical tour de force. For and up-and-coming band, their live show is no joke. You’d think they’d been touring for years the way they nailed every track. If you arrived just in time to see Sublime, you missed out. 

The Dirty Heads played a variety of songs from their small but quickly-expanding catalogue which included “Stand Tall”, “Believe” and of course Rome made an appearance to help out with “Lay Me Down”. They also threw down a solid cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black”. While the quintet are definitely more popular in the United States (with “Lay Me Down” hitting #1 nationwide), Toronto fans received them with open arms, loving every minute of their killer 45-minute set.

Having (honestly) never listened to Sublime with Rome before the show, I didn’t know what to expect. Let’s be real, nobody will ever compare to Bradley Nowell, so until I find the missing parts for my time machine, I’ll take what I can get. This seemed to be the mentality felt by the thousands contributing to the two consecutive sold-out shows at the Kool Haus this weekend. And maybe if I closed my eyes and had no knowledge of Sublime’s history, I might have mistaken Rome for Bradley. Or did I inhale too much second-hand pot-smoke? 

With such a vast song catalogue, it’s hard to predict which of your favorite tracks they were going to throw down. The audience waited with baited breath before each opening chord, only to erupt into a fury of strained vocal chords and thrown elbows. Some classic tracks included “Wrong Way”, “Badfish” and my personal summertime favorite “Doin’ Time”. The encore, of course, included ‘Santeria’.

If you’re one of those people who refuse to see Sublime with Rome because they’re not “technically” Sublime, shut your gob, grab a ticket, and be forever stuck under their voodoo.