Live review: BORIS THE SPRINKLER NEO-SPECTACULAR 30-YEAR-O-RAMA! (and more!) – Live in Green Bay

Badger State Brewing Company – 24 Jun 2022

Green Bay’s favorite sons celebrate 30 years of madness with a bunch of friends.

When I first got wind of the BORIS THE SPRINKLER NEO-SPECTACULAR 30-YEAR-O-RAMA!, I was bound and determined to be there. It was scheduled to take place at the Badger State Brewing Company in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Saturday June 24th. I lived in Wisconsin for more than a decade growing up, so I always relish a chance to visit. Because Green Bay is about seven hours from my west Michigan home, we decided to break up the drive and have a full weekend of immersion in the Dairy State. The following is a chronicle of those adventures.

We bookended the main Boris show with a couple of radically different musical experiences. On Friday, we decided to hit Summerfest in Milwaukee. It’s a massive everything to everyone music festival that provided some wonderful people watching and overpriced beer. We caught parts of sets from The Breeders, Warrant, (we probably enjoyed “Heaven” and “Cherry Pie” way more than we should have), local heroes Violent Femmes and even Milwaukee born Steve Miller, who was rock solid for a 78 year old geezer. Before and after Summerfest we hit some great dive bars in and around Milwaukee. That was definitely more my scene.

On Saturday, it was only about a two hour drive to Green Bay from Milwaukee. Badger State Brewing Company is in the shadow of Lambeau Field, so the whole area is built up with hotels and sports bars. The show was originally slated to be outside, but the threat of rain forced a move indoors. The festivities took place in a giant, rectangular room with the stage on one end and the bar on the other. The space was big enough to accommodate the 600 or so people and still allow plenty of room to move about.

The show started promptly at three, and we somehow managed to check into our hotel, grab a drink and be standing front and center for the first band. Milwaukee’s The DUIs kicked things off with a high energy half hour set of straight up punk. The hard drinking, hard driving quartet was probably the most aggressive band of the night, and got things off to a rip roaring start. I suspect The DUIs forced everyone else to up their game. 

Up next was a reunion of The Minors, one of the original (along with The Tyrants) Green Bay punk bands playing for the first time 40 plus years. It’s funny how things work. Forty years ago, The Minors kept mothers awake at night with worry. Four decades later, their show seemed like a family friendly gathering. At times I felt like a voyeur watching the joyful reunion of a scene I was never a part of. Time has taken most of the menace out of their music, but it was fun to watch. 

Another reunion followed, though it wasn’t nearly as long in the making. The Leg Hounds put out three full lengths for Boris the Sprinkler frontman Rev Norb’s Bulge Records in the first part of the 21st century, but hadn’t played for years. (Two thirds of the band went on to form Jetty Boys.) The Sheboygan (it’s right between Milwaukee and Green Bay) trio’s catchy, oldies inspired punk and roll songs about girls have aged surprisingly well. They’re just one of those fun, energetic bands that are really hard not to like.

The next band was the most foreign to me. Minneapolis’ Butcher’s Union has Paddy and Billy from Dillinger Four, along with Paddy’s wife Christy (Pink Mink, Von Blondies) and a dude from Gay Witch Abortions. I didn’t know any of the songs, but I enjoyed the interplay between the male and female vocals. Their short set of upbeat punk was really good. This was supposed to be their second to last show, so by the time you read this they’re probably no more. 

To this point, the show had been running like clockwork. The 30 minute set up time between bands was nice, and allowed plenty of time for socializing. (We had long since blown past our goal of one beer per band.) Butcher’s Union set up fast, started early and only used about a half hour of their scheduled 45 minute set. That meant that the second last band, The Ergs, went on a full half hour early. 

This was not necessarily a bad thing. as we were treated to an extra long set by The Ergs. The barely active New Jersey trio is led by the rare singing drummer Mikey Erg, who at one point gushed about how much he loved Boris the Sprinkler. The geeky-but-proud aesthetic was certainly something they shared. Their set of off-kilter pop punk had multiple highlights. I caught myself singing along quite a few times, especially on covers of Husker Du‘s “Everything Falls Apart” and ZZ Top‘s “Tush”. They played for over an hour and there was never a dull moment. It was my first (and likely last) time seeing The Ergs, and it was everything I could have hoped for. 

Seeing Boris the Sprinkler live is always a spectacle, but the anticipation took this show to the next level. The crowd was at a fever pitch when the band came on about 8:50. Frontman Rev Norb was dressed like the blue Power Ranger, with a newer version of his geek antler helmet. (The original is on loan to the Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas.) Even guitarist Paul #1 got into the spirit of things with his metallic, not microwave safe outfit. (Bassist Ric Six and drummer Paul #2 looked like they were going fishing.)

The band played all your favorites like “Drugs and Masterbation”, “Sheena’s Got a Microwave Now”, “Kill the Ramones”, “(Do You Wanna) Grilled Cheese”, “I Wanna Get to Third Base With You” and “(She Digs My) New Wave Records”. Rev Norb ran around the stage and high kicked like a man half his age. He also ranted and raved about things as insignificant as obscure Green Bay fast food restaurants, and as far reaching as the recent overturning of Roe Vs. Wade. The audience managed to maintain its energy throughout. 

When the guys tried to quit after an hour or so, the rabid crowd forced them to put their heads together to figure out an encore. After a couple more songs, they eventually finished with their tribute to a local scene legend, “Timebomb Tom”. (More on this in a minute.) It’s one of those songs with a single verse played faster and faster until the Boris guys were completely spent. It was a great performance, and an even greater evening. In my professional, completely unbiased opinion, the BORIS THE SPRINKLER NEO-SPECTACULAR 30-YEAR-O-RAMA! was a raging success.

Afterwards, we made the mistake of meeting up with The DUIs for a night cap. Next thing we knew it was almost 2 am, and we had been drinking for 11 hours straight. Sunday morning was not entirely pain free, but some good food at Cheesesteak Rebellion set us right for another day of fun. For Sunday we moved downtown, which is full of the type of dive bars I prefer. We also did a little record shopping at the soon to be closed Exclusive Company. I actually found some pretty decent stuff (The Stranglers, Acid Reign, The Meteors, Lillingtons, Chris Barrows Band) at 70% off. 

The Exclusive Company is a small Wisconsin based chain of record stores who opened their first location way back in 1956! (I spent a lot of time at the West Bend store as a kid.) The founder died recently, and most of the locations, including Green Bay, are closing for good. The GB store, run by the previously mentioned Timebomb Tom, was famous for having shows on their back loading dock, so we decided to catch the last one ever. 

To call the area behind the store a loading dock is a bit of an overstatement. It’s more like an overgrown staircase that faces a parking lot. While the bands had to pack onto the tiny “stage”, the viewing situation wasn’t much better. People squeezed between the cars, and stood on the sidewalk. There were probably a couple hundred people milling around in the parking lot, most with a drink from the adjacent beer garden. We didn’t pay attention to all the bands, there were like seven, but we did catch the Smart Shoppers. The spazzy, Devo-esque Green Bay quartet features Rev Norb on bass. Their herky jerky set was a lot of fun. 

The biggest draw of the Sunday matinee was The Boris Auxiliary. This was the weird, short lived final lineup of Boris the Sprinkler from 2004. It was Norb on vocals, the original early ‘90s rhythm section, and a guy named LP on guitar. They played stuff from the first two full lengths, along with the three songs this version of the band recorded. The cool thing was, there was very little overlap with the Saturday show. Those who stayed for Sunday got an almost completely different set. It was a real treat for serious Boris fans, even if they couldn’t hold a candle to the “official” Boris lineup.

Confessions of a merch whore:I picked up a couple of Boris 7” inches, Male Model and the Moral Crux split (green). Although I already have both, these were new, extremely rare cover variants. (Yes, I know I have a problem.) At two for $5, how could I resist? Norb hasn’t raised his prices since ‘95. I bought all three Leg Hounds CDs for $5 each. They were worth that just for the long drive home. I also grabbed the Smart Shoppers Dorkwave LP for $10. The coolest thing I got was an original, unplayed 1981 copy of The Minors‘ Waves Have Hit 45. I was talking to Paul #1 when a woman approached and handed him a copy. She must have seen the lustful look in my eye, because she offered me one too. Sometimes it really is all about who you know.