Review of Tommy's concert at The Bowery in New York - August 18, 2011

NEW YORK — For many fans, Tommy Stinson will always be the bratty kid-brother bassist of the Replacements, arguably one of the greatest (and most self-destructive) rock ’n’ roll bands of the ’80s. But today, at 45, Stinson has established himself as a hard-working and prolific survivor of those hedonistic early years of indie rock, with full-time memberships in Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum as well as a respectable solo career.

To promote “One Man Mutiny” — his first new album in seven years, due to be released at the end of this month — Stinson has been performing a weekly residency at his friend Jesse Malin’s Lower East Side rock club the Bowery Electric, and he’ll return to Maxwell’s in Hoboken — where the Replacements played one of their first East Coast shows 28 years ago — on Wednesday.

At the intimate Bowery Electric on Thursday, Stinson and his crack band — which included longtime collaborator Marc Solomon on guitar and Stinson’s sultry fiancée Emily Roberts on backing vocals — captivated about 100 rapt fans by playing most of the new album as well as favorites from his post-Replacements bands Bash & Pop and Perfect. He joked about being in Guns N’ Roses (he joined in 1998) and about his age: “45 is the new 80,” he told the crowd, complaining of how tired he was to still be onstage at midnight. For much of the set, he threw away the set list and cranked out audience requests.

Stinson never has been as acclaimed as a songwriter as ’Mats frontman Paul Westerberg, but in the course of a 20-year solo career, he’s certainly penned some memorable tunes, influenced heavily by early Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones. The new album’s “Don’t Deserve You” and “It’s a Drag” both embody that style, slyly insinuating elements of classic soul into indie-rock rave-ups.

Stinson is releasing the new album on his own label, Done to Death Records, and donating the proceeds to the Timkatec Schools in Haiti, which provides aid to children devastated by the 2010 earthquake there. “I got tired of playing all the games,” he told the Bowery Electric crowd. “I figured that I’d just release this one myself and see if I could do any better.”

There were no covers in the hour-plus set — Stinson would sometimes sing the Who’s “My Generation” or the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer” when touring with Guns N’ Roses — and no Replacements songs, but the easygoing and still boyish Stinson delighted the crowd by dipping far back into his own songbook. He started the set with “He Means It” and ended the night with “Friday Night Is Killing Me,” both strong uptempo rockers from Bash & Pop. Along the way he played most of “One Man Munity,” including the romantic “Destroy Me.”

“This is the first duet I ever wrote,” Stinson told the crowd, “and it sure helps that my girlfriend can sing the hell out of it.”

After playing bass with his band for the first part of the night, Stinson strapped on an acoustic guitar and performed several songs solo, including the country-tinged “Zero to Nothing” from the new album and the Bash & Pop favorite “Nothing.”

For the final part of the set, Stinson switched to electric guitar and ripped through several raucous rockers, including the Bash & Pop track “Never Aim To Please” and the hard-rocking “Exile on Main St.”-styled “Motivation,” from his 2004 solo album “Village Gorilla Head.”

It might not have been the Replacements, but nobody seemed to mind.

Source: http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2011/08/tommy_stinson_presents_shows_i.html