Concert Review | Ratboys and Ducks Ltd. 

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On their charming 2017 song “GM,” Chicago band Ratboys mention sipping “Genny Creams” at a memorable Albany show. It’s fitting that their latest trek to New York State featured a sold out stop at the Bug Jar on Monday, April 8, where Genesee cans run just $4, well within a traveler’s budget.

The quartet hauled in from a Sunday night gig in Burlington, Vermont. They followed the path of totality of the solar eclipse to a Weedsport hotel parking lot, where they viewed the cloudy celestial event earlier that day.

“We got the full Rochester experience,” Ratboys singer/guitarist Julie Steiner quipped onstage. “Not to bring it up, but the sun came out like three hours after.”

You can only get away with a jab like that if you love the place. Ratboys’ fondness for the Flower City shone in an electrifying set, their first in the 585 region since well before the pandemic.

In the seven years since “GM,” the sometimes twangy, occasionally punky Ratboys have achieved celebrated underdog status. Their latest album, 2023’s “The Window,” was named one of the best of the year by music publications like Pitchfork and Stereogum.

Riding that wave, the band’s Monroe Ave. drop-in had the cozy energy of a homecoming gig, despite the 600-mile distance to their Midwestern base. Steiner gave love to the venue multiple times. Opening band Ducks Ltd., down from Toronto, set the mood as band leader Tom McGreevy swayed and strummed a Jesus and Mary Chain cover and about a dozen originals.

Ratboys, meanwhile, played nine of the 11 tracks from “The Window,” which they recorded in Seattle with former Death Cab for Cutie member Chris Walla. The group even dug out a deep cut, what Steiner called the “deranged geriatric cruise vibe” of 2020’s “Victorian Slumhouse.”

Lead shredder Dave Sagan played his guitar at different times using a pick, a drumstick, and an old handheld radio. They took their time unspooling “Black Earth, WI,” an eight-minute epic with an elongated solo, and made its celestial sing-along coda feel improvised on the spot. The crowd erupted when the band came back down from the stratosphere.

The evening’s highlight was, in fact, a four-song showcase of Ratboys’ full range: country power-pop on “Go Outside,” fuzz-rock on “Crossed That Line,” and a charming quickie called “Space Blows.” It concluded with more controlled chaos as they slowed down the breezy “No Way” into a heavy metal sludge, just because they could.

After the pop-punk double feature of “Alien With a Sleep Mask On” and “Look To” closed out the set, Bug Jar patrons were treated to a once-in-lifetime encore: Bonnie Tyler’s dramatic pop gem “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” presented as a duet between Steiner and Ducks Ltd.’s McGreevy.

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Instead of leaning into the cheese, the crew played it straight, dipping into vocal theatrics not present in their own bands’ catalogs. The soaring choruses beckoned the crowd to come alive, like it was once again 3:23 p.m. in the path of totality.

The next total solar eclipse is due over Rochester in 2144. But the Flower City won’t have to wait long for Ratboys to pass this way again, Steiner assured. Clouds or no clouds, they know how to light up a room.

Patrick Hosken is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].