Only Living Boy 6.18.11 Asbury Lanes

Words by Amanda Remling | Photos by Craig Metz

Asbury Park, NJ — Tattoos, tight t-shirts and skinny jeans infiltrated Asbury Park on a Saturday night. An energetic and alcohol influenced crowd filled the Asbury Lanes for Only Living Boy’s album release show for Hide Nothing. The sound of bowling echoed through the historic music landmark as the girls danced to Atlantic, Atlantic and The Dead Exs, the guys grabbed drinks and a Big Lebowski Jesus impersonator stalked the grounds.

Having released their first album a couple years ago, Only Living Boy previously debuted some of their second album while opening for The Parlor Mob over Memorial Day weekend. Parlor Mob guitarist Paul Ritchie even worked closely with the band, producing their new album.

www.onlylivingboy.com

With the album being unveiled at the Asbury Lanes, listeners seemed to be delightfully amenable to the new songs filtering through their ears. “This is about a friend…and me too,” singer Joe Cirotti murmurs into the mic as they jump into “Sunny Day Man.” It was hard to tell if the rumbling of the floor was from the bowling or Trevor Newcomb’s boisterous drumming.

Almost immediately you could tell the audiences new favorite OLB songs. With every head banging in “Lonely Puppy Blues” and strained crooning in “Hide Nothing”, the audience fell more in love with the Hackettstown trio.

Overall a pretty wicked night, the band did have me going “whattttt?” when they jumped into “Ronnie Ronzony,” a song drastically different sounding from the others off of the album. After a set of body melting guitar riffs and heavily seductive bass, the barely a minute “Ronnie Ronzony” had me having flash backs to high school garage bands. While the song may be different from their usual bluesy rock, the band manages to pull off the pretty hilarious song.

Each time you see Only Living Boy they only get better. Cirotti looks and sounds the part of the rock star singer. Bass player Eric Curley’s smooth playing and casual demeanor make his movements playing look effortless while Newcomb’s drumming pulls everyone (including the crowd) together as they rock back and forth to the music.

Only Living Boy ended to a thunder of applause and bowling pins, but the night was still far from over for the music lovers at the Lanes, as Quimby Mountain-Band took the stage after. I don’t know about the drugs, but Only Living Boy definitely screams sex and rock n roll.

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