So I went to a Joey Cape show last night and a Lagwagon concert broke out. Music is of course very subjective but it’s safe to say that if you don’t get a renob from Joey Cape, Lagwagon or Bad Astronaut then you are retarded. The last time I saw Lagwagon was at the House of Blues in Anaheim like 5 years ago and when my hotmail account blew up (yeah, that’s right I still have a hotmail account. I access it using Lycos on my PalmPilot, it’s tight) with news of a Bad Astronaut acoustic tour it was like, “hellz to the yeah” around my apartment. So Josh and I went last night, it was radical. Here is the easiest way to keep everything straight in your head: Lagwagon = punk, Bad Astronaut = indie punk (I mean, they have a cello so how punk can they be, right?), Joey’s solo stuff = either acoustic versions of Lagwagon or BA songs/other ballads. Everybody on board? Yeah, thought so.Joey started off playing 2 or 3 Lagwagon tunes by himself, along with Going for the Bronze (sick video) off his new solo record (with his iPod playing backup, which is funny in a “Flight of the Conchords” type of way) before having his old school bandmates (Chris Flippin sighting!) come up and rip through 2 Lagwagon tracks with a destructive, full sound. It was bodacious. I mean these are my favorite songs of all time basically—Making Friends, Twenty-Seven, Wind in Your Sails, To All My Friends:these are jams, man (and that last link I have probably played 50 times AND it’s the same shirt that Joey was rocking at the show last night. WARDROBE CHECK, JOEY.). Boom. It’s nice that no matter how many times I’ve heard these songs (and judging by the insane amount of sing-alongingness I’m not the only one) they still are amazing. Far too often Lagwagon gets unfairly lumped in with other skatepunk like NoFx, the Vandals or Pennywise but their sound is so much more mature, boasting not only Joey’s fantastic vocals but also his vocals and non-linear song structure; the man is nothing if not prolific and repetitive “verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus” isn’t going to float his boat. Nor should it yours.
After Joey finished up his set he was joined by the rest of Bad Astronaut along with many disclaimers that this was the first show they’d ever played and (up until 3 days ago) had never even rehearsed before. And while the transitions between songs were a little haphazard that’s a tiny, small price to pay for some amazing tunes. Joey constantly joked about the challenges of relearning all the Bad Astronaut songs and for a guy who probably has released over 300 songs with all of his various endeavors (Lagwagon, BA, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Playing Favorites, solo stuff) that is a lot of chord progressions to keep straight. This was the first stop on this (way too) short tour and if you are able to catch the shows south of here I highly, highly recommend it. I mean it took ten years just for this one tour to take place so hit them up if you at all can. I give this show four renobs up.
Cell phones take the raddest pictures
Who Wants to Play Bass?
Bass, Lead Guitar, Rhythm, Cello, Synth, Drums. Yep, that's Bad Astronaut.
