Category: Show Reviews

It is apparent as we arrive that The Lost Boys is a seminal coming-of-age film to more goths and their familiars than those —ahem — of a certain age. Though not sold out, The Great American is full of stylish vampires of all ages, my partner and myself included. The 1987 Schumacher Peter Pan/Anne Rice mashup maintains a certain cultural currency as evinced by a thirty year reunion back in 2019 featuring the full living cast.
Tonight features a more modest guest list — a fit Alex Winter and a near manic Timmy Capello, second-string vampire and scene-stealing shirtless saxman — the Red Room Orchestra lineup is fire. This is a blessing because when we dust off the Lost Boys Soundtrack CD, we find an abbreviated list of ten tracks representing not a post-punk goth masterpiece but a schizophrenic mash-up of late eighties pop distractions, from INXS regrettably twice-dipping into Aussie pub-rock, to late-career solo forays by Foreigner’s Lou Grahm and the Who’s Roger Daltrey, to the residual 50’s rock n’ roll hangover that plagued that decade. The unauthorized list containing all the film’s tracks is just as bewildering, including the Run DMC/Aerosmith hip-hop crossover, “Walk This Way.” We rightly remember the high points: Echo and the Bunnymen covering “People Are Strange,” Gerard McMann’s standout “Cry Little Sister,” and, of course, Tim Capello’s sweaty and inexplicable cover of Christian rock band The Fall’s “I Still Believe.” Continue reading “SF Sketchfest Review: Red Room Orchestra plays The Lost Boys at Great American Music Hall, 1/19/24”