10,000 Maniacs Delights Landmark Audience 30 Years after Release of In My Tribe

When the band 10,000 Maniacs tweeted in advance of their March 24th sold-out show at Landmark, they ended with the hashtag #callaroofer. Having experienced their show, I can verify that they did, in fact, blow the roof off the Jeanne Rimsky Theater.

When I mentioned to friends that I was seeing 10,000 Maniacs, a typical response was “but how will they sound without Natalie Merchant” (the band’s original singer). The answer – they will sound great. They will sound exactly like 10,000 Maniacs. Merchant left the band in 1993 to pursue a solo career, and various formations of the band continued to tour and record. The current lineup of the band includes four original members: Dennis Drew (keyboards), Steve Gustafson (bass), Jerry Augustyniak (drums) and John Lombardo (guitar), as well as Jeff Erickson (guitar) and Mary Ramsey (lead vocals and electric violin/viola).

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the band’s second major-label release (and first large-scale success), In My Tribe, which was for many the soundtrack to the late 1980’s. The album stayed on the charts for 77 weeks, and was voted one of the 100 most important releases of the decade by Rolling Stone magazine. In the late 1980’s, 10,000 Maniacs was everywhere – on David Letterman, Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show -- and their catchy brand of folk-rock was all over the FM airwaves.

It was clear from the moment that the band launched into its first song, 1992’s “Candy Everybody Wants,” that this was definitely the same 10,000 Maniacs. Mary Ramsey handled the vocals perfectly, and added an extra element with her electric viola playing. [For more on Ramsey’s string virtuosity, and her choice of instrument, see this great writeup by my partner, violinist Mark Underwood.]

Over the course of the next two hours, the band played two high-energy sets. As promised, they did numerous songs from In My Tribe, including: “Like the Weather,” “What’s the Matter Here,” “Cherry Tree,” and “Hey Jack Kerouac.” It’s worth reading the smart lyrics to these songs sometime, particularly “What’s the Matter Here” which deals with the topic of child abuse. Also noteworthy was the wonderful rendition of “Trouble Me” from 1989’s Blind Man’s Zoo – hat tip to drummer Jerry Augustyniak for doing the high harmonies on that song.

But what was especially enjoyable was seeing how much the band loved to play, and that was evidenced by their covers of other artists – often from the same time-period of the 1980’s. Their surprising performances of Roxy Music’s “More Than This” and The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” were simply superb, as was their cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Because the Night.” For whimsy, they included the Mary Tyler Moore theme, much to the audience’s delight (complete with a hat throw by Ramsey at the end). Ramsey did some traditional string pieces, and there were a few extended folk-rock jams during their performance, showcasing the skills of the band members. In the band’s two sets, they managed to cover music from their start in 1981 to their most recent studio album, 2015’s Twice Told Tales which included many traditional folk songs from the British Isles.

By the end of the performance, and with the encouragement of 10,000 Maniacs, half the audience was dancing enthusiastically in front of the stage. The band closed, appropriately, with “These are the Days” from 1992’s Our Time in Eden. “This is what we live for,” they shouted from the stage at the close of the show… and clearly, that was the case.

Next in Landmark’s Roots Rock series are One Night of Queen on April 9, Richard Thompson on April 19, Karla Bonoff & Livingston Taylor on May 6, and Joan Osborne on June 23. For more info on these and other shows, visit Landmark’s website at www.landmarkonmainstreet.org