Coney Island High is about the size of a thumbnail, but a good 200 plus people jammed into the thinly shaped venue on Friday, June 25th to watch the Pilfers, Eastern standard Time and One Cool Guy perform each band's unique brand of ska and punk music.
The word of the day at this concert was charisma, the quality inherent to all bands that can successfully entertain its audience. Charisma and stage presence combined with good music always produces a great show. It is not easy to obtain charisma, some bands have it, and some do not. It is confidence at sometimes, arrogance and humility at others.
On this day, The Pilfers and One Cool Guy possessed and freely used their charisma, to great success. One Cool Guy- actually nine cool and nice guys from Long Island in their late teens and early twenties- opened up the night with their set of ska / hardcore punk. This was their first performance in New York City, after recently finishing a tour in the south as well as doing a number of shows on Long Island. Dave Paiva and Mike Streuing, the lead singers, brought the music to life with their dazzling succession of rapid fire lyrics of songs such as Semi, What We Do, and Bill Kozby (no, the song is not about the famous comedian…). The band's body movement also told the tale of the night, as they jumped around everywhere in the small, cramped stage. Dave also put some humor into the act by utilizing a number of Dr. evil impersonations during the set. "Zip it, Zip it good" he jokingly told the crowd, while imitating Dr. evil's hand movements. It was a solid performance by the entire band- enhanced by the ease of liking One Cool Guy's "nice-to-be here and just party" charisma.
Unfortunately, the next performers, from Washington DC- "Eastern Standard Time"- only received tepid, lukewarm reaction from the crowd for their old school, ska instrumentals. Although some parts of songs were given cheers for their good feel of the sound- even covers of Skatalites tune "Eastern Standard Time" (from where the band got its inspiration from" received only a small amount of applause. EST seemed likeable, but without any kind of flair to hold the crowd's interest-people walked back and forth between the stage area and the bar- where Game 5 of the Knicks game was being broadcast.
It seemed everyone was there to see The Pilfers, and when they got up to perform, the energy of the crowd went up 120 percent. The crowd skanked and shouted to hits such as "Yakuza" and were treated to some new songs as well. It was a very strong outing for the indie band, which held the audience with their energy and charisma.
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One Cool Guy: 24 hours a day, we're here.