Hipper fratboys and their female cohorts, with the boys better behaved than the girls, who were talking loud and giggling and bumping into and even spilling beer on us, giving rise to visions of strangulation and heads slamming against walls. The Dennis and Jimmy show brought its act to Maxwell's, to a surprisingly small crowd of fans who mostly looked like they had just been born when the Frogs started performing back in 1980. Although she never performed with a 6-foot, 5-inch man wearing green sequined wings and chaps who gives the impression of standing on a remote mountaintop even when he's three feet in front of you. His wig, a shoulder-length black bob, did look kind of like Patti's hair. 'We're like Patti Smith in '77, minus the tits,' snapped Dennis Flemion. I am happy because the off-key, inept band called Dinosaur that played in my high school boyfriend's brother's basement (and that sucked) are now the best thing I've heard in too long a time. I am happy because rock 'n' roll is here to stay and I was beginning to wonder. I am happy because my youth was up there, playing its heart out. When the Fog finally exits the stage I realize that the muscles in my cheeks are strained from smiling.

The drums pound a beat on your ribs and the ears fill with cotton. And just when you thought it couldn't get any better the band lurches into a flawless, epic, surprisingly soulful version of Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain.' Every song is impossibly loud. A few of the boys in front are inspired to not only nod their heads but to bounce up and down as well, as if riding some pogo stick of glee and approval. Mascis gets the heads flipping frantically with well-loved cuts like 'The Wagon' and 'Repulsion,' and at the height of the frenzy the band tears into a cover of Iggy Pop's 'TV Eye' with Watt taking over on vocals. Mascis sings the anthems of 70s childhoods and 80s adolescence and single moms and keggers in the woods and boredom and heartbreak and endless evenings spent smoking bowls in the Dairy Mart parking lot. They were grunge before grunge, indie before indie. has always been music you can sink your teeth into, meaty bits of melody inspired by mid-70s cowboy rock and tempered by early 90s ennui. They're broke, they haven't bought the album, but now.now they just might. The crowd nods their heads less frequently to the new tracks, wearing puzzled half-smiles. Throughout the night Mascis sprinkles the set with his newest tracks ('Waistin,' 'Ground Me to You,' 'Back Before You Go'), forgoing More Light's piano for high-volume distortion and power-trio punch.

The frogs racially yours