The Jumpers Reunion Mohawk Place, Buffalo July 2, 2005	by Kevin J. Hosey
	Yep, the boys were back in town, the band ripped this joint and so on; the Jumpers, possibly the best rock band Buffalo/Western New York ever produced (almost definitely from the 1970s), reunited for their annual show and absolutely brought the house down with the hard-edged Stones rock and roll blended with lots of punk and power pop edge. Rock and roll may be a young person’s game to many people, but the Jumpers (all members pushing or at/over age 50) can teach a lot of tykes a thing or two. The band was and is led by vocalist/front man Terry Sullivan, who uses his 6-foot-6 frame as part of his imposing, unstated “I’m in command of this stage” approach, but always sharing it with the band: Bob Kozak, the main songwriter, on guitar and backing vocals; Scott Michaels on guitar and attitude; Craig Meylan on bass and vocals, and Roger Nicol on drums.
The Jumpers were later represented in a host of other great bands, and Sullivan formed The Restless, which released an album on Mercury Records in the mid-to-late 1980s (the video for one song, “I Wanna Know,” made it into rotation on MTV), which featured several Kozak songs. While the band made a few well-received recordings, the Jumpers were best known for their aggressive, take-no-prisoners live shows, which often left audiences almost as sweat-soaked as Sullivan, and this show was no different. Opening with “Hello, Girl,” they immediately segued into a fan favorite, the Sullivan-penned “South of the City,” a short, punchy rocker about growing up south of Buffalo. Sullivan grew up in the Southtowns and went to school with and/or was a contemporary of the likes of Peter Case, Gurf Morlix, Jim Whitford and Kozak, among others. The band barely halted before launching into “I Wanna Know What’s Going On,” finally stopping for a moment to wild applause and some comments on Michaels’, um, outfit, which included a leather motorcycle hat, a platinum blond wig (Michaels is almost bald and has dyed his hair platinum blond, pink, orange and other colors, and has ridden motorcycles for years) and very bright red lipstick.	Terry, Craig and Scott (yes, Scott)
Bob Kozak and Terry Sullivan	The Jumpers played almost 20 songs during this show, and while it would be a disservice to the band and probably to you fine readers to describe every song and take way longer to do so than the show itself lasted, among the highlights are the band’s smart taste in covers, which included a fine version of Link Wray’s “Rumble” led by Michaels raising his white Gibson SG over his head throughout the tune, as well as a surprise run-through of Alice Cooper’s “Be My Lover” which more than pleased the crowd, filled with people who were fans of the Jumpers in the 1970s to musicians who played with or heard the members through the years, writers and just plain old rock fans. This led to a fantastic stretch of the show, which started with a version of Kozak’s garage-influenced “Getting Out Tonight” which he recorded with the Tourists and sang this night, highlighted by a sizzling Michaels’ solo, and continued with a cover of the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Teenage Head” which the Jumpers added some punch to, complete with harmonica from Sullivan and a portion of “Shakin’ All Over” added to the mix.
This was followed with one of the two songs the band is so well-remembered for in Buffalo and one of the two songs on its classic 45, “Sick Girls,” a Stonesy rocker with Sullivan singing of his reaction to the women he and his bandmates have encountered. Michaels supplied another strong solo. After a tough cover of “Nervous Breakdown,” the Jumpers ended their regular set with the second of the songs from their classic 45, “This Is It,” another rocker with Stones influence with some extra punk edge, a call to arms and declaration that this was what the band stood for and was doing. The song features a very unpunk instrumental section where Michaels and Kozak solo off of and then with each other, heavy, soaring, crashing and gliding, finally building the song to a call-and-response section that sounds way better than my description may make it seem, until Michaels and Kozak bring the song back to the melody and crunching riff and the audience, as it does every time I’ve caught the band live, explodes. My notes for the regular set end with: “Holy shit, that was good.”
	The Jumpers played two encores, finally ending with a song first played by the Jumpers that Sullivan helped make popular with the Restless, “You’ll Know Better (When I’m Gone),” a goodbye to a woman who didn’t appreciate him and will miss him later tune. Opening the show was Semi-Tough, one of those bands that has been recommended to me but I had not caught until this night. I may have been missing something, but the band did nothing for me, good or bad, with the best song to my ears a cover of “I Wish I Was Your Mother.” Due to the talent level of several members of the band, I will give them another chance soon.