With every passing year, the durability of Chicago’s best-known Irish-punk export becomes more and more apparent, and, correspondingly, more and more remarkable. After all, these are the Tossers; they rifle through bottles of Amstel Light, stumbling and spitting, occasionally even wandering out the stage doors mid-sentence.
Every other song concerns the pleasures and perils of alcohol, and every other concertgoer seems to find him or herself in a fight at some point. That the Tossers have managed to keep this going for over fifteen years has turned them into one of the finer institutions of the Irish-punk scene, and last Friday, they celebrated the release of their latest studio album, On A Fine Spring Evening, with a three-hour set at the Double Door.
Front man and mandolinist Tony Duggins’ ability to transition seamlessly from ballad to speed-punk was excellent as ever, and crowd favorites (of which, in a thirty song set, there were many) went over unsurprisingly well. A complete run-through of On A Fine Spring Evening
