[Editor's note: Over the holiday season, SonicNet is looking back at 1999's top stories, chosen by our editors and writers. This story originally ran on Tuesday, July 20.]

SAN FRANCISCO — The Toilet Boys, with their smoke, fire and power tools, were almost as eye-catching as the dressed-to-kill crowd that came out to see them Friday at the Justice League.

In keeping with the New York band's raunchy, underground look and feel, the audience was a riot of vinyl, leopard skin, mesh, snakeskin and sequins blended with casual exhibitionism, gender twists and plenty of skin. It made for quite a floor show. The medium-sized club was full, with a few hundred more turned away at the door.

"I knew they'd do well, but I wasn't expecting this," said Berkeley, Calif., resident Brett Matthews, 26, whose Coldfront Records is about to release the Toilet Boys' second full-length album, Sinners and Saints. "They've played San Francisco maybe three or four times, and the draw gets bigger each time. We did no advertising for this, hardly any promotion. How the word got out, I don't know. But it sure did."

The Toilet Boys are New York's most recent hybrid of garage and glam, adding fire — literally — to the style associated with such bands as the New York Dolls, the Dead Boys and the Ramones.

Opening were locals 440 Six-Pack and Los Angeles' the Lazy Cowgirls. Both offered a fine, tough, hard-rock sound, albeit without any exceptional flashiness. But the peacocks in the crowd were primed for glamour, and the Toilet Boys were the ones to deliver.

Wearing a red fringed halter top, a rhinestone-studded bikini, platform heels and black stockings, the frontperson known only as Miss Guy strutted onstage to an ecstatic response from the crowd. A tall, lissome thing with platinum hair and perfect makeup, Miss Guy was the first hint at what was in store. The rest of the quintet, four shirtless toughs with plenty of tattoos, provided the bad-boy complement to Miss Guy's naughty androgyny.

The Toilet Boys' sound is a wild hybrid of high-energy punk and screaming heavy-metal pop, with hand-clapping breaks and lots of "yeah yeah" choruses. What sets this group apart is the invention and sheer bombast of its presentation.

Columns of flame shot high into the air from cannons on either side of the drum kit after the first song, creating even more heat in the sweltering club. It recalled the sort of theatrics associated with glam-metal icons Kiss.

During just their second song, "Special," guitarist Sean — sporting a black guitar with a red devil's pitchfork mounted on the headstock — walked to the edge of the stage, turned around and, without missing a note, fell solemnly back into the waiting arms of the crowd. The move, typical of set climaxes or even finales, was a good indication of the band's no-holds-barred approach.

For "Influence," from Sinners and Saints, Miss Guy straddled Sean's shoulders and was carried through the groping crowd to the back of the club. Standing atop a table overlooking the audience, Guy wailed in the spotlight for the duration of the song, then climbed up on the guitar player for a ride back to the stage.

The show was all about maximum visual impact. Seeing a guitarist take a rotary sander to the neck of his guitar, producing a showering cascade of sparks, isn't exactly run-of-the-mill. Nor are the flame-shooting guitars, the fire-breathing guitarist and the gorgeous gender-bending vocalist. But rocking through guitar-heavy songs with frivolous lyrics about "shaking it," "setting you on fire" and "taking you higher, baby," the band showed a commitment to entertaining the paying customers.

"Come on, you just don't see that every day," Lynn Childers, 29, of San Francisco, yelled over the din. "I've seen these guys four times now, both here and in New York, and the show just keeps getting wilder. I heard they burned down a club in England."

The smell of sulfur filled the club as the pyrotechnics continued. The bandmembers — including bassist Adam Vomit, rhythm guitarist Rocket and drummer Electric Eddie — are deliberately mysterious about their ages and real names. But they had their tightly choreographed rock moves — which included simultaneous sparks shooting from their guitars — down pat.

Miss Guy strutted, shook and crawled around the stage, kneeling before Sean to offer a lit torch for him to ignite his guitar. Later, Miss Guy tipped a shot of alcohol into Sean's mouth for the fire-breathing segment of the show.

Closing the set with more fire and smoke, the Toilet Boys returned quickly for their encore. Appropriately, Miss Guy had donned a tight black T-shirt for their Ramones tribute.

"Who likes the Ramones?" shouted Miss Guy, as the crowd screamed for more. "I mean, who LOOOOOOVES the Ramones?!!" he asked, as the band tore into a pounding version of the Ramones number "Carbona Not Glue."

They closed with "Another Day in the Life" (RealAudio

excerpt) and left the stage with Miss Guy blowing kisses. People

stood dazed as the lights came up and the smoky haze slowly dissipated.

"I'd heard about the scene they put on when they were in London, but

missed it then," said Thomas Windall, 31, visiting from England. "Glad I

didn't miss it tonight. I'll be telling stories about this one for a bit,

believe me."