Review: Acclaimed ’90s rock act visits Bay Area for first time in over 25 years

Mike Doughty sure knows how to get a crowd on his side.

“I just want you to know that you are literally the most attractive people we have ever seen in our lives,” the Soul Coughing front man said. “You freak me out — too (expletive) beautiful.”

Yet, he didn’t really need the sweet talk to sway the audience’s favor on Saturday night (Sept. 14) at The Fillmore. The thousand-plus fans that filled the legendary San Francisco venue to capacity for the first of two nights were clearly already in his corner and ready to enjoy their first Soul Coughing concert in at least a quarter of a century.

And the vocalist-guitarist and his formerly estranged Soul Coughing mates — keyboardist/sampler Mark Degli Antoni, bassist Sebastian Steinberg and drummer Yuval Gabay — certainly sounded great during this local stop on their long overdue reunion tour, powering through 21 numbers of jazzy hip alt-rock tunes in roughly 90 minutes.

The whole thing felt so natural and, well, necessary that it left one wondering how it could’ve possibly taken them 25 years to get this show back on the road. Sure, the New York City outfit parted on acrimonious terms in 2000, after putting out three highly enjoyable records during a five-year span, but other acts have certainly buried the hatchet much quicker than this when there was a payday involved.

Still, the consensus mood at The Fillmore was “better late than never” as fans swayed to the music in the packed crowd and sang along to Doughty’s curiously appealing vocal work, which mixes goofy Beat poetry, rap, one-liners, scatting, deadpan delivery, repetition for the sake of repetition, pure nonsense and rare insight.

Granted, that latter doesn’t always factor into the equation — as Doughty illustrated, first in English, as he sang “Bus to Beelzebub.”

“Get on to the bus that’s gonna take you back to Beelzebub,” he sang. “Get on to the bus that’s gonna make you stop going rub-a-dub.”

And it didn’t sound any more insightful when he mixed in a little French — “Voulez-vous the bus,” he sang — even though, we know, that usually does the trick.

The Soul Coughing songbook is littered with those type of oddities — this is probably a good place to mention that that same song ends with Doughty just repeating “Yellow No. 5” (yes, as in the controversial food dye) over and over again. Yet, he gets away with those lines — in part, due to that great deadpan delivery, but, probably more so, because he often wears cool Beat poetry/jazz cafe hats.

Taking the stage right around 8:30 p.m., the band kicked off its first Bay Area show of the 21st century with a fine version of “Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago.” It was the first of 10 tracks that hailed from “Ruby Vroom,” the group’s 1994 full-length studio debut that turns 30 later this month.

Continuing into “Down to This” (another “Ruby Vroom” offering), Doughty sold his lyrics almost entirely with pure rhythm and cadence, dropping words like notes plucked from Steinberg’s upright bass. Things got even groovier as the troupe ventured into “Irresistible Bliss” — the 1996 sophomore outing that lives up to its title and stands as the band’s best album — for “Collapse,” which proved to be a fine showcase for Gabay’s towering mix of power and technique on the kit.

Even the second (and third) tier Soul Coughing material — “White Girl,” “Sugar Free Jazz,” etc. — was well worth hearing on this night, since the band was operating in such a zone and, well, it just felt so good to be hearing Soul Coughing back in the live arena.

Doughty can be quite chatty in his solo shows, which might have something to do with the fact that there is a lot of space to fill when it’s just you and a guitar up there on the stage, but he was pretty quiet, for the most part, between songs.

He also seemed to downplay the whole front man vibe, instead just coasting through the gig in low gear and showing relatively little energy. I kept wanting him to cut loose, and take the whole thing to a higher level, but he never did — even during what should have been a barnburner of a encore with the Soul Coughing anthem “Super Bon Bon.”

Yet, there were so many highlights — including “Casiotone Nation,” “St. Louise Is Listening” and the main-set-ending  “Screenwriter’s Blues” — that it would be wrong to categorize this show as anything but a success, as Soul Coughing rose from its long slumber to once again delight Bay Area fans.

Here’s hoping this is a reunion with legs.

Setlist:
1. “Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago”
2. “Down to This”
3. “Collapse”
4. “White Girl”
5. “Sugar Free Jazz”
6. “The Idiot Kings”
7. “Blue Eyed Devil”
8. “Disseminated”
9. “Rolling”
10. “Lazybones”
11. “Misinformed”
12. “Bus to Beelzebub”
13. “Casiotone Nation”
14. “St. Louise Is Listening”
15. “True Dreams of Wichita”
16. “Mr. Bitterness”
17. “I Miss the Girl”
18. “Moon Sammy”
19. “Screenwriter’s Blues”
Encore:
20. “Circles”
21. “Super Bon Bon”