Icky Blossoms at this year’s Maha Festival. The band plays at The Waiting Room Dec. 26.

by Tim McMahan,lazy-i.com

Holiday concerts are an Omaha tradition and Tuesday night’s show at The Waiting Room is a hum-dinger: The return of Icky Blossoms. 

Some Icky fans (me included) got ripped off at this year’s Maha Music Festival due to the “weird weather event” that emptied out the Maha compound right before the Icky’s performed. Getting back into Maha turned into a debacle. While waiting in the line, I could hear  Icky Blossoms’ music bouncing off buildings blocks away. By the time I got back in, the set was practically over.

Tomorrow night (Dec. 26) we get another chance to see their full set, and these days, that’s a rare event. The band’s core members have their hands full living life: Sarah Bohling lives in Atlanta where she’s busy with music projects (including band No Head), Derek Pressnall has a family and full-time gig at Secret Penguin, and Nik Fackler and wife, Kat, just had their first child — the lovely Faye Rose — six months ago. That doesn’t leave much time for rock and roll.

Despite that and the fact that they haven’t released new material in years, the band’s music has never been more relevant. This year alone saw two high-profile Icky Blossoms music placements. One was the use of “Sex to the Devil” from their 2012 self-titled debut as the finale song at Versace’s 2023 Spring Summer runway show in Paris. “We didn’t realize Paris Hilton would be walking that finale,” Pressnall said via a conference call with all three Icky’s.

The other was their song “Cycle” from the same album used as the finale for video game Grand Theft Auto 5 – Cayo Perico Heist. No doubt as a result, that song now has just under 1.7 million Spotify spins.  Could there be a better time for new Icky Blossoms music and a reunion tour? 

In fact, the band is working on new music. “We have a whole process for writing and recording,” Fackler said.

“We could put out a record, but touring, especially right now, seems… there’s a lot of moving parts – jobs, babies, families and where we live,” Bohling said. 

“We’re going to take a modern approach to it,” Fackler added. “Rather than one big tour, we’re looking at festivals or shorter stints on the road.”

They said you won’t hear any of that new Icky music tomorrow night, but you will be treated to an all-new digital light show created especially for the event.

The amazing David Nance and his band Mowed Sound also are on the bill, as is PROBLEMS (a.k.a. Darren Keen), who will open the show at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15.

The concert is followed with an “official after party” at Pageturners Lounge featuring an Icky Blossoms DJ set along with DJ Tyrone Storm! No cover, starts at 11 p.m.

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2023 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.