trucks.pngThis Sounder first caught the Trucks in early 2006 at the Nightlight Lounge, a (literally) underground venue in the band’s bayside hometown. The wildly-dressed female quartet opened for Pretty Girls Make Graves and their dance-happy fusion of rock, electro-pop, and xylophone giddiness stole the show from the “big city” headliner.

A fan since that night, Sound was in attendance for the Trucks’ “last show ever” at the Nightlight (now an intermittently open all-ages venue) last Saturday. And in many ways, the Trucks’ last performance mirrored the first we attended. There was much screaming and jumping both in the crowd and on the stage. There was Kristin Allen-Zito’s conspicuously missing tooth. There were the silly/serious songs—all the songs in the band’s slim catalog.

What was new on Saturday was a sense of relaxed resignation; the band—Allen-Zito, Marissa Moore, Faith Reichel and Lindy McIntyre—finally had no “What’s next?” expectations to fulfill, and the relief (if only imagined) was palpable. They took the stage and tossed pointy party hats and streamers into the crowd, grinning and prancing in their cute, calculatedly awkward way. They performed their standard “Welcome to our show” ditty and then dug into a 60-minute set with the possibly-honest, very funny “Introduction,” sending the crowd into a hopping frenzy.

A fews songs later, Marissa temporarily lowered the volume with “Pervs in the Bushes,” one of two songs on their just-released EP, Never Forever, that don’t appear (in non-remix form) on their 2006 self-titled full-length. This short lark, the twisted, almost-ballad “Come Back” and hilarious, denied-oral-pleasure “Why the?” were highlights of the night, as usual. The latter was followed by many thanks to parents, friends and Bellingham itself. And the telling admission, “When we started, we didn’t mean to be a band, really.”

That was followed by a new song about “leaving a friend,” fronted by the guitar-wielding, high-kicking Faith. The ladies then threw out champagne poppers and played “Zombie” under a hail of mini-streamers.

The Trucks wrapped up with the revenge-minded “Shattered,” issued more thank-yous and walked off the stage—then reappeared play one last live song: a second pounding, smiling “Introduction.”

As they sang in “Louisiana,” “It’s a blessing to be hit by a truck.” Though their live sets didn’t change much in three of their five years and they recorded just one studio album, The Trucks were a blessing to those who love to dance—and laugh.

Photo: trucks @ nightlight 9-6-06, by Gunther Jose Frank