Karen Ponzio Photo
Big Fat Combo.
“This song is about all of you,” said Tom Hearn of Big Fat Combo as he introduced the song “The ‘In’ Crowd.” By the look of the packed house at Cafe Nine Sunday afternoon, “all of you” meant a sizable portion of New Haven’s music community and fans. Which made sense: The bill of this particular Cygnus Radio Sunday Buzz matinee was made up of two beloved local bands, the aforementioned Combo and The Furors.
“You know it’s always a happy day when The Furors are in the room,” said host Frank Critelli as he stood on the stage to introduce the legendary two-piece band with a deep song catalog and an even deeper fan base. Made up of Derek Holcomb on guitar and vocals and Tom Dans on drums and vocals, the duo — who have played together for over forty years — showed no signs of slowing down as they delighted the crowd with a 14-song set of their wonderfully witty and often wisdom-filled hits.
The Furors came right out of the box with “Johnny Johnny” and “The Wreck of a Handsome Man”; the former got the crowd to sing along and the latter got them to clap along. That would not be the last time audience members participated in the raucously fun set. People danced and sang throughout as the band’s vivacious sound penetrated each and every song. Although most Furors tunes are considered classics in the New Haven scene, Holcomb and Dans make them as fresh sounding as if they were all released in the past year (their last release was 2017’s Psychozoic).
Holcomb and Dans each continuously gave off an effervescent vibe with every beat and pulse of their music. Holcomb joyously jumped and danced around the stage while Dans’s drumsticks did their own dance over his kit, both making their rambunctious set seem almost effortless. By the time they got to their encore, “Hey, Joni!,” Critelli was dancing with the crowd too. Cafe Nine was at near capacity. Once again The Furors had proven why they were beloved enough to be covered by a host of New Haven artists on Let’s Get Furious: A Tribute to The Furors many years ago.
One of the bands who contributed a song to that album was the next act up to the stage. Big Fat Combo is a four piece-band — the aforementioned Hearn on vocals and guitar, Cary Pollick on lead guitar, Tom Murphy on upright bass, and Jack Murphy on drums — that has been playing together for 21 years, and they are no strangers to covering the music of others. In fact, according to Hearn they play “mostly covers,” though they have one album of original music called Chicks Dig It that was released back in 2010.
“Cover bands give cover bands a bad name,” said Hearn before the show, noting that many of them have “no imagination” when it comes to choosing which songs to play. He also noted that legendary acts — Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash — often covered the songs of others and did it well. Big Fat Combo aimed to do it well also, or at least in their own unique way. “Our mission,” said Hearn with a smile, “which we used to put on our flyers, went like this: ‘Bad songs played good. Good songs played bad.’” Mostly though, they wanted to have fun.
“We have no goals, no aspirations,” added Hearn, still smiling. “And nothing to sell.”
“Thank yous and heartwarming gratitude to Tom Hearn for letting me muscle him into this gig,” is how Critelli introduced the band, which tore through both covers and originals as a fired-up crowd danced and sang and screamed their way along to the rock ‘n’ roll madness. The band soared through songs from their album including “Hale Bop,” “Too Pretty,” and “Tag Sale,” which got the crowd singing the title in a call-and-response fashion, with Hearn making the packed room seemingly shake in delight along with the rousing bass lines and banging beats of Murphy and Murphy (When asked if they were related, Hearn answered with a laugh. “We never asked,” he said.)
And then there were those covers. They were as wild and wonderful as the band itself, and included The Ventures’ “Diamond Head” — which showcased Pollick’s sizzling string work — and “If I Had You,” a song which Hearn said was “a big hit for Jimmy Durante in 1960.” He also played “100 Lbs. of Clay” by Gene McDaniels, noting that “the owner of this establishment (Paul Mayer) would love to hear this song” after Pollick noted that the band usually did not do requests.
The band also covered “To Love Somebody” by The Bee Gees, which had nearly everyone in the bar singing along, but no song was sung along to as loudly as the band’s own “Banned From Sam the Clam’s,” a “story song,” as Hearn put it, that called out the band by name repeatedly, making the chants of “Big Fat Combo” reverberate throughout the bar. Critelli asked them to do one more, and they added “Cigareetes, Whusky, and Wild Wimmen” by Sons of the Pioneers, after which Pollick told the crowd “and you can still be in bed by seven,” though barely anyone seemed to have left long after the music was over.
“If you’ve never been to Cafe Nine, you are at the center of New Haven music right here,” said Hearn. On this particular afternoon, it seemed these two bands had that center covered.