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It promised to be ska-punk celebration, packed with
four contributors, and it turned out to be a pop-punk
washout of glitz, glam, bright lights and just enough
cheese to keep the new fans happy. That’s not to say
I didn’t enjoy these bands; I did, but it only came
from the support bands doing their job well. They were
there to warm up the crowd, and give them their due,
they did.
First up in our four-band strong festivities, the
Matches, patently trying to latch onto that So-Cal
punk sound that typifies their hometown California with
its characteristic piston-driven guitar sound. Sad truth
is though, this is a darkified version of Busted
with bouncing habits and crazy hair-dos; and that’s
about it.
In less than the time it takes to go to the bar and
order a pint, The Matches are followed by Zebrahead,
a try-hard 5-piece delivering a bit of a hillbilly sing-along
support session and whose relentless and often disastrous
attempts at combining a number of styles into something
that sounds original just miss by a bean and end up
sounding like an Ant and Dec/Sum41 crossover.
Sounds impossible? No. As strong and as devoted a following
as these guys have, they didn’t cut it tonight.
No support could have prepared us for what came next.
For the sake of either art or entertainment, or because
the rest of us had fallen asleep, Goldfinger pushed
a prancing, stark-naked member of their entourage onto
the stage prior to taking the stage themselves. And
take it they did. But after an enthusiastic and fiery
start, it soon became clear Goldfinger were holding
things back and cutting their set for the benefit of
headliners, Reel Big Fish. In fact, if you’d
seen Goldfinger play a few years ago you would have
barely recognised them. They played shiny happy tunes
for a shinny happy crowd, and although fun for the most
part, that Goldfinger edge was gone.
Reel Big Fish brought some long-awaited horns
to the night, and with it some skanking on the balcony.
And whether it was the tunes or whether it was the spirit,
if it wasn’t for the snow outside this could have almost
passed for the first summer evening of 2004. But this
wasn’t summer. And a shoulder-swinging, toe-tapping
brass extravaganza wasn’t what we were here for.
But that’s not a reflection of the whole night; it
was fun, and it was ska, if only intermittently.
By the time we were half way through Reel Big Fish’s
set, however, I began to see the crowd’s momentum finally
drag, and they were obviously now only waiting for the
bands’ two big songs, ‘Beer’ and ‘Take On Me’ to kick
in. Were Reel Big Fish deliberately hanging on to them
so as not to lose the crowd too early? Sounds likely.
And sure enough, perhaps just as they’d realised it
themselves, at a point near the end they pretty much
admitted this neat little crowd trick; “Oh f**k it,
let’s just play Beer!”. Couldn’t have come any sooner.
The night was long, it had a tragic ‘80s metal feel
at times, and a gothed-up Busted flavour the rest. But
I still got that feeling you can only get from live
music, so someone was doing something right.
Relevant sites:
/http://www.reel-big-fish.com/
Becky Midgley for Crud Magazine 2004©
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