NY’s Fun Lovin’ Criminals return for two more shows

Less than a year after their last visit, the Fun Lovin’ Criminals, a regular visitor in more recent times, will perform two shows in Athens at the Gagarin 205 Club this Saturday and Sunday. The New York act, one of the contemporary scene’s more appealing acts, which has blended a potent cocktail that includes rock, soul, blues, rap and Latin over several albums, is touring with a recent new release, «Welcome to Poppy’s.» Surprisingly, this New York act has failed to connect with its homeland’s masses. The Fun Lovin’ Criminals have enjoyed considerable commercial success around Europe and other parts of the world, but have remained relatively unknown at home. Perhaps it is the band’s penchant for comical accounts of New York’s seedy underbelly that has repelled listeners at home. If so, then there is some irony behind the group’s biggest selling single in the US, «Scooby Snacks,» which tells of a drug-induced robbery. The band, which formed in 1993 after frontman Huey and Fast, a multi-instrumentalist, met working as bartenders in New York, has established itself as an act that epitomizes «coolness» in contemporary sound.