Live review: The Tossers / Ten Second March at Top Deluxe Bar & Grill

Grand Rapids, MI – 04 Mar 2023

The Tossers kicked off the St. Patrick’s season early with a rollicking show in Grand Rapids.

It’s that time of the year again, when we wake up our favorite celt-punk bands for the month of March. Grand Rapids has always had a healthy appetite for this style of music, but that hunger was put to the test when The Tossers and Flogging Molly (plus Anti-Flag) played the city on the same night. (Dropkick Murphys play the bigger joint next weekend too.) I can’t speak to how full the much larger venue that Flogging Molly played at was, but the cozy Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill was packed to the gills for the opening night of The Tossers’ 30th anniversary tour. 

The venue was a major factor in choosing which show to attend. The intimacy and beer prices at the Tip Top are hard to beat. (I was glad to see another TGEFM writer covered the FM/AF tour in another city.) This is the second year in a row that The Tossers’ pre St. Patrick’s Day tour passed through the Tip Top in GR. Based on the crowd’s reaction, it’s likely to become an annual tradition. The Southside of Chicago mainstays will end their two weeks on the road with their long standing March 17th show at the Metro in the Windy City. 

Local punk favorites Ten Second March crawled out of their graves to open the show. The band has been around for 20 or so years, but plays pretty sparingly these days. Their sound is old school street punk and oi with just a bit of an Irish influence. Their 40 minute set started at 9 PM on the dot and included their spirited opening cover of The Oppressed classic “Work Together” and the traditional sing along “Nancy Whiskey”. 

My personal highlight was their original song “Work is the Curse of the Drinking Class”. (There’s a pretty well made video for this song floating around out there that I would encourage you to check out.) At times the five middle aged guys of Ten Second March seemed a little under rehearsed, but more importantly, they were clearly having fun and did a good job of getting the crowd warmed (lubed) up. I appreciate the fact that the Tip Top typically doesn’t stack a ridiculous amount of bands before the headliner. 

The Tossers came on at about 10:15 and put on the kind of show that’s generally reserved for the last night of a tour. Frontman Tony Duggins especially played with reckless abandon for about 100 straight minutes. The six piece band (banjo, acoustic guitar, bass, drums, fiddle, tin whistle) just released their first new album in six years. It’s a mixture of new and traditional songs. Their set included some familiar songs from the new, self-titled record. “Dirty Ol’ Town”, “Paddy on the Railway” and “Rocky Road to Dublin” had everyone singing along. At one point, Duggins acknowledged that Flogging Molly were playing nearby. He said the two bands were old friends and that there was no one better than FM.

My favorite Tossers song was probably “No Loot, No Booze, No Fun”, which Duggins dedicated to Dee Dee Ramone. The band closed their set with “The Parting Glass” like they always do, and that’s when things got weird. Everyone but Duggins had left the stage, but the crowd wouldn’t let him quit. Eventually the rest of the band was collected and they kept playing. Duggins’ banjo stopped working, so he went down in the audience to sing. At this point it was more of a party than a show. A little drunken sloppiness didn’t stop me from enjoying another old favorite, “Good Morning Da”. Since I’m far more Dutch than I am Irish, I also appreciated the bang for the buck. 

Confessions of a merch whore: I went with every intention of buying the new Tossers record, but I balked at the $35 price. Is this the new vinyl reality? I don’t begrudge the band getting whatever they can, but I just couldn’t pull the trigger. In general, there was very little merch. I spent my money on tall cans of beer instead.