The Bloodhound Gang

Fame is fleeting; just ask the Bloodhound Gang. Having scored a major international hit five years ago with "The Bad Touch," the dance floor novelty track that proposed doing it "like they do on the Discovery Channel," they virtually disappeared not long afterwards. Their star shone briefly last year when filmmaker Michael Moore used their "Fire, Water, Burn" in his incendiary documentary, Fahrenheit 9-11. Now back with a new album but no hit single to anchor it, although the cheekily titled single "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo" looked like a contender, the Philly hip-pop/rap-metal crew who refuses to grow up are playing to smaller than expected crowds. Such was the case at this Toronto stop where they were lucky if 500 people witnessed the show. But the prospect of playing to a less than half-full house did nothing to dampen the band's desire to put on a show for those who still care. Featuring music from all four of their albums, the set was a solid representation of their puerile scatalogue of greatest shits. While a little less raunchy than past appearances, the show was a reminder that you can take the boy out of the frat house but you can't take the frat house out of the boy. Such antics as bassist Evil Jared Hasselhoff's Jägermeister bong and his and front-man Jimmy Pop's loogie exchange were shades of the kids who first appeared hell-bent on offending everyone back in the late '90s. But just when you thought they were the musical equivalent of a fart joke, they went and flashed giant backdrops that featured hysterical and locally-relevant jabs at Eric Lindros, Bryan Adams and the prime minister's wife, in addition to an offer to trade Alaska for Toronto, which showed intelligent humour. Although not the record-selling force or concert draw they briefly were, the Bloodhound Gang remains one of the most entertaining live bands on the planet.