Sunday, October 24, 2004

Cake report



Cake Show, First Ave, Oct 23, 2004 

I've been looking forward to last night for several weeks. I've been a Cake fan ever since Fashion Nugget came out sometime during my undergrad. My good high school friend Brad, and his wife Sharon, are coming into town from central WI to see the show at First Ave. Unfortunately, they'll only be in town for less than a day, as their cat Sasha was recently diagnosed with diabetes, and can't go for more than a day without an insulin shot. I offered that they could bring Sasha to Mpls, but apparently she has associated car rides with rides to the vet, and bringer her would have been a bigger hassle. To bad.

Anyway, I couldn't convince them to take the bus downtown, and I suppose in the end that was fine, since we parked in the lot right behind First Ave ($9 to park, but hey, I wasn't paying, and this allowed us to leave our coats in the car.) So Brad, OK, for once in your life you were right - driving in this case was a good call. You can't say I don't admit it when I'm wrong.

Got to the show 'round 7, and were hoping we might have missed the first act. No such luck. Northern State is some sort of trio of hip-hip wanna-bees. Something like Spice Girls, except if I had to give them names I would call two of them "Slightly Overweight Spice" and the other one "Trashy Spice". They really had no flow, and the only thing interesting about their set was the guy running the snyth in the background - he also did some beatbox stuff on the last track which was at least a change of pace.

After a stage set change which seemed to take forever, Cake took the stage with a pretty intense version of "Comfort Eagle". I was mesmerized with the antics Vincent diFiore on trumpet/keyboard/tambourine. One minute he'd be on the keyboard, crouched over with his ear just inches from the ivory, the next he'd be wailing - and I mean WAILING on the trumpet, then two seconds later he'd be going nuts with the tamborine while belting out the backing vocals. Impressive! Brad said the lead guitar player was no slouch either - I've never played guitar, so I'll take his word for it. Lead singer John McCrea seemed in top form, and was sporting what looked to be a garage sale acoustic guitar with a little tiny amp for all that dry strumming. Anyway, they worked their way through most of the songs I wanted to hear (with the exception of "Meanwhile ... Rick James" and closed with an encore of "The Distance" which pretty much brought down the house.

Oh yea, the one thing that pissed me off was when they did this "call and response" thing, asking the crowd to repeat a chorus (Like "No phone ..." or "Shut the fuck up ..." and then pitting the main floor against the balcony. I don't give two shits about whether the crowd can yell the chorus - I just want to bath in your beautiful music, OK? I mean they probably could have played two more songs in the time they wasted.

Another side commment: It seems some people are totally without a sense of irony. I mean, McCrea has the crowd repeating the chorus to "No Phone" over and over and over, meanwhile you've got jackasses in the crowd holding their cell phones up, apparently broadcasting the concert to someone on the other end. Now, if a friend called me from a concert, my reaction would either be "what the fuck are you calling me for, I don't give a shit" or "I couldn't get tickets to that show, and what, now you're just trying to tease me?!" Either way, people need to get some manners. And a clue.

Oh yes, Brad thought the show was both "super" and "excellent". His words.

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