The Queers play tight sets — 22 minutes on a fast night, sometimes pushing 32. That is not a budget constraint or a booking compromise. Joey Ramone once told Joe Queer to keep sets short and not overstay the welcome, and the band has been honoring that advice for four decades. What they pack into that half-hour is loud, fast, and built so that nothing gets wasted.
About the Show
Joe Queer (Joe King) started The Queers in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1981, and he’s the last original member still touring under the name. The band helped define what pop-punk sounds like — that blend of “sneering punk rock with surf, garage, and old-school rock ‘n’ roll melody” — and they’ve been at it for four decades with a philosophy Joe Queer sums up as “always walking on the sunny side of the street.”
They came up in the Boston punk scene, playing rooms like The Rat, the city’s answer to CBGB’s, and connected early with Screeching Weasel’s Ben Weasel, who produced their 1993 Lookout! Records album Love Songs for the Retarded. That record broke them out of the New England circuit. Beat Off followed in 1994. Don’t Back Down came in 1996 and earned the kind of description that sticks: “the best late-’70s-era Ramones album the Ramones never recorded.” Their debut full-length, Grow Up, dates to 1990. Most recent studio release: Reverberation (2021), an all-covers album. The band plays over 100 shows a year and has toured across 30-plus countries. Joe Queer’s philosophy: “Don’t take yourself too seriously. Great life-lesson.”
The December 4 Syracuse show falls one night after Buffalo (December 3 at Mohawk Place) and two nights before Greenville, SC (December 6). No support acts are listed for this date.
Venue & Logistics
The show is at The Lost Horizon, 5863 Thompson Rd in Syracuse. Doors open at 6 p.m. Presented by Photo City Music Hall, which books shows across the Finger Lakes region and upstate New York. Ages 16 and up; under 16 admitted with a parent or legal guardian.
Tickets
$25. No refunds policy in effect. Available at PhotoCityPresents.com or via the link below.