Soul Coughing was one of my favorite bands in the 90’s. Their album Ruby Vroom has always been one of my top 10 favorite albums of all time. So, you can imagine my excitement when I heard that Mike Doughty was touring to celebrate the 25th anniversary of this album by performing the entire album live. So, I picked up tickets and went with anticipation to the U Street Music Hall, along with 300 like-minded fans.
For this tour, Mike Doughty brought along the band, Wheatus, to perform as the opening act. In addition, three of the band’s members stood in as his backing band, along with Doughty’s long time upright bass player, Andrew “Scrap” Livingston. Successfully, the five musicians brought Ruby Vroom alive in the most spectacular way. Between the humorous banter between the musicians and their improv, this show will easily make the list of my most memorable of 2019.
Taking the stage, Doughty surprised the audience with an acoustic version of “Super Bon Bon” and then the fan favorite, “Circles”, before kicking off the first track of Ruby Vroom. Doughty joked with the crowd that there would be no surprises with the setlist because we all owned the album. However, even though we all knew the songs, we were not prepared for the performance. Madden Klass, on the drums, kept the beat going while Brendan Brown of Wheatus, took over with guitars. Matthew Milligan, the bass player for Wheatus, jammed out on the sampler and Scrap Livingston gave us that jazzy bass that all Soul Coughing fans love. Mike Doughty took the center stage as a performer and a conductor.
Throughout the night, Doughy led his band through improvs of the songs on Ruby Vroom by directing the stops, starts, and tempo. It was quite amazing to watch. After performing “Screenwriters Blues”, Doughty took some time to chat with the fans. He gave a special thank you to Brendan Brown and Wheatus for making this tour possible. He gave a sincere “thank you” to the fans for their support. In addition, he said he was honored to produce an album that played such an important role in people’s lives.
Doughty also took some time to share his project on Patreon. Patreon is a website allows fans to directly support the artists that they love. Doughty compared it to the “Netflix of music” and encouraged his fans to support him as he continues to do what he loves: to make music for others. Finally, the night ended as we all expected, with the love song and last track on Ruby Vroom, “Janine”. As the last song concluded, Mike Doughty encouraged the audience to stick around for autographs after the show.
