Ted Leo + Pharmacists and Thermals, August 12, McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn

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Ted Leo + Pharmacists and Thermals, August 12, McCarren Park Pool, Brooklyn

POSTED: Monday, August 13, 2007, 7:46 PM

Filed Under: Music Show

James Canty and Ted Leo

Photo | Brian Howard

"We're not even getting our own jokes."

So Ted Leo's onstage banter wasn't the greatest. And his jokes lacked punchlines. But it was no matter. Performing at the McCarren Park pool in Brooklyn on Sunday with a giant billowing cloud and a bright blue sky as a backdrop, TL/Rx performed a blistering set sprinkled with old favs ("Timorous Me"), recent favs ("Me and Mia," "Where have all the rudeboys gone?" complete with extended "I asked"/"I told" breakdown) and new favs from Living With the Living ("The Sons of Cain," "Bomb, Repeat, Bomb"). Leo survived his own failing humor, batted-aloft beachballs and the gyrating advances of a green-bikini-clad stage dancer to end the set with a champagne toast to Dave Lerner, the band's bass player making his final appearance with the group. "Do it for Dave," shouted some in the crowd during the obligatory pre-encore pause. The band re-emerged one by one, first Leo, then guitarist James Canty, then drummer, Philly boy Chris Wilson, and finally the hirsute Lerner, who received the biggest applause of the day before the band launched into an encore, Leo informed the crowd, chosen entirely by Lerner.

The set was the final of the free concert, which included a performances by Birds of Avalon and Portland, Oregon's The Thermals. Though the Thermals didn't showcase anything new, they did play an energetic 3 p.m. set drawing approxiimately equally from their three albums, the most recent being 2006's The Body, The Blood, The Machine. They also performed as a trio after touring last year as a four-piece.

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