Leftöver Crack
Free Week Live Shots
Reviewed by Kevin Curtin, Fri., Jan. 8, 2016
At last, a ticket price affordable to Leftöver Crack's core audience – free. On the heels of their first album in 11 years, the rusty crusties loaded into Mohawk on Sunday for Free Week's most anticipated concert. With them arrived chin-tattooed disciples and, typically, local law enforcement. An hour before anthems "One Dead Cop" and "Gang Control" blared, Austin's police arrived in five squad cars to arrest a semiconscious concertgoer crumpled at the venue's entrance. This set the stage perfectly, but the NYC punk/ska unit – whose lead singer, Scott "Stza" Sturgeon, had been stationed locally in recent years – stumbled out of the gate with the frontman's insufferably novice keyboard playing effectively ruining "Life Is Pain," but rebounded with Casio-free anthems "500 Channels" and "Crack City Rockers." November's quality comeback Constructs of the State came to life with riffy metal cut "Slave to the Throne" and copious guest vocalists including Oakland's Reivers screamer Kate Coysh and Oscar the Grouch stand-in Jesse Sendejas, who'd opened the show as bargain bin crust folkers Days N' Daze. Main support act Pears proved superior with their volatile concoction of pop punk and trash. Ultimately, longtime Crack-heads whiffed a decidedly cheerier, more-coherent energy during Sunday's 90-minute air raid, with Stza drinking hot tea, indulging in cheery stage banter, and demonstrating pro-level lead singer moves.
