On Friday night Cafe Nine served up a double dose of legendary local bands, as Lost Generation and The Cadavers each offered a set that heated up an already steamy room full of fans and friends with a host of hard and fast songs that got the crowd moving, moshing, and mad for more.
The corner of State and Crown was buzzing an hour before the show began with people who were leaving the Happy Hour show (which featured Kriss Santala and Gary Mezzi) and arriving for the night’s double bill, a meeting up of old friends, fans, and New Haven musicians — as is known to happen on this corner on a Friday night. By the time the show began, a decently sized group was waiting inside for The Cadavers to rise to the stage. Bassist and vocalist Teo Baldwin came running through the crowd yelling, “Let’s go, guys!” and he was met with cheers. He and guitarist Larry Loud encouraged people to move up to the stage as they thanked them for being there.
“We’re gonna have fun,” said Baldwin. “We’re gonna rock and roll!”
Rock and roll they did, with Loud and Baldwin both also on vocals and Chris Carson on drums tearing through a 13-song set that felt like it flew by and, by the end, had everyone begging for another.
The opening song from their 2024 release “Ruthless, Toothless, and Rocking” — “Where I Come From” — opened the show. They continued to offer numbers from that release, like “I Need It Now” (see the video for the song below) and “Dull Action,” each one building upon the next with Loud’s singular melodic shredding pumped up to the nth degree by Baldwin and Carson’s one-two rhythmic punch.
Baldwin called Loud’s guitar playing “fucking bananas” and the audience agreed. With every solo he dug back in again hard, much to the delight of his fans. In between he joked around and also shouted out more friends, including Lost Generation.
“We know them from the old days,” said Loud between songs. “They’re 1, m,klop-000 percent for real. It’s an honor to be opening for them.”
The Cadavers even had a song called “Walking Tall” which had Loud asking if anyone knew who Buford Pusser was, and receiving cheers in response. (For those who don’t know, he was the justice-seeking sheriff in the 1973 film titled, you guessed it, Walking Tall.)
“One day, one how, we’ll all be walking tall,” added Loud to even louder cheers.
Baldwin took over lead vocals for a song by their friend Wally Gates titled “I’m Done,” which was quite apropos as friendship and camaraderie were the big booming vibe in the room for the entire evening.
“If you scream loud enough you might get another song out of Larry,” said Baldwin after that one. The crowd chanted “Larry!” and he, Baldwin, and Carson happily obliged.
Lost Generation found their places on a stage that had fans jammed right up to its edge, where the moshing started about three chords in to the first song after vocalist Joe Dias — aka Joe D — said to the screaming crowd, “It’s been a long time. Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
While you might not be able to find a wealth of information about this band online, they are so well known and well loved by longtime fans who would all be happy to tell you anything you wanted to know about them. Conversations on the sidewalk pre‑, post‑, and in between sets included many about where and when they had seen the band — who have been around since the ’80s — and which albums they still had and considered favorites.
If Friday night was any indication, they will be gaining more online attention (and more fans) soon as they announced they are currently recording an album of new music. Baldwin announced during The Cadavers set that he had heard some of that new music and that it “fucking rocks.” The band offered one of those new songs — “Hateful,” which Dias said was written “because everything is so hateful now” but then added, “let’s make things beautiful again.” He and the band ripped through eight more songs that the audience ate up, including a revved-up version of “Sound of Silence” as well as a song called “Some Kind of Animal” which was exactly that: an onslaught of feral sound complete with thrashing back beats and growling and guttural guitars.
“You should know Jimmy,” Dias said about guitarist Jimmy Dillon. “You should kiss his beard.” The cheers were plenty for him as well as the rest of the band, which included Todd Knapp on guitar, Sean Sheridan on bass, and Dave Russo on drums. They created the perfect sound for an edge of summer Friday night: emboldening, energizing, and just flat out fun.
Before their final song, Dias said, “If you know it, come up and sing it.” As he extended his mic into the audience — multiple times — audience members leaned in and sang along. This reporter, who was hanging back, did not know the song, but found out later from a friend that it was called “Homicide” by a band called 999 from the 1970s. Look it up, it’s pretty fab. And it was a fab end to this particular Friday night, though it was not the end for a sizable part of the crowd, who ended up lingering on that corner talking and laughing with the bands and their friends well into the next hour after the show. Things were looking more beautiful already.
