On Wednesday, February 20th, “Badfish”, a Sublime tribute band came to perform at Bogarts on Vine Street. When I arrived, the opening band “Bumpin’ Uglies” was playing relaxing, beachy music and did an amazing job on their set. They gave the crowd great songs to remember like “Bad Decisions”. Finally, “Badfish” opened their set with STP by Sublime, which was an amazing choice. Most of their songs were played back to back to back, so they had time to play as many as possible. As a die-hard Sublime fan, I was elated to hear them play over 25 of my favorite songs live. They were engaging with the audience and acknowledged the good, loving energy within the audience that I felt as well.
Not only did Badfish do an amazing job performing, but they honored the original band Sublime. In 1997, the lead singer Bradley Nowell passed away but has been an inspiration to many. He sang and wrote almost all of Sublime’s songs and owned the band’s famous dog “Lou”. The lead singer of Badfish told the crowd a story of a time when Bradley’s father came and watched one of their shows. He pulled the band aside after the concert and told them to continue his son’s legacy and to keep the music alive. It moved the crowd and had everyone reflect on Sublime’s old amazing, talented lead singer. It also motivated me to go to as many Badfish concerts as I can and to spread the music of Sublime, because of its original sound and the messages presented in their music.
September of 2017 I saw “Sublime With Rome”, which is the original band, but with a different lead singer named Rome Ramirez. The show was much larger and more “planned out” than Badfish, and not nearly as long. Their set consisted of about 11 or 12 songs, and 4 were dedicated to the new songs they produced without Bradley Nowell. The experience was still immensely special due to the fact that it was the original band who had worked and created for over 20 years and also worked with Bradley. Unfortunately, their performance was not as moving and special as Badfish was because of the lack of songs and interactions with the audience. Both shows consisted of high energy crowds which made both of the shows a blast.
All in all, the show was so impressive that I considered following them to Columbus for their show the next day.