Yes… The New York Dolls… In Burlington!

The reaction was the same every time; “Burlington? The New York Dolls are playing in Burlington?? In the afternoon??” And then I’d go on to explain how, yes, they were playing a music festival in Burlington, along with The Diodes. No one was interested enough to come, though. They were saving their concert-going energy for Iggy Pop the same night, which was a great performance but was a too-crowded, too-hot mess in terms of actually trying to see the show.

But I’ve always been a bigger Dolls fan than a Stooges fan, so while, in retrospect, I’d have been happy to miss Iggy and the Stooges (not that I actually *saw* any of the stage during the show at all, so I sort of did miss it anyway), I was so not missing the Dolls. Even if it meant getting the GO train to Burlington and back.

And it was worth the effort. David Johansen was in fine form, as was Sylvain Sylvain. New(er) members Sami Yaffa (bass) and Steve Conte (guitar) were also sounding great.

The crowd was mostly made up of old punk rockers, sporting band t-shirts, tattoos and lots of black. It was a happy and joyous but mellow place to be – with a real vibe of a communal experience, with people sharing space, taking photos of each other and excited to see the band. Here are a few photos I took, trying out the various zoom options on the new camera.