Raking It In
With a cover band, it tends to be hard to tell the true personality of the musicians. However, when you go to a Me First and the Gimme Gimmes show, the personalities shine the most. Tonight was a bigger example of this when you bring in awesome personality of the openers touring with them. The sold out crowd was in for a treat from all three bands on Wednesday.
If there was a contest for best band name to tour with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, it would be our opener, Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds. This band blew me away, with this punk rock attitude mixed into a surf rock sound. The band lead vocalist is Kid Congo Powers, who is known for a couple bands including The Cramps. That detail is important because they did a Cramps cover during the set too. His on stage personality is fantastic and full of life. If there was a biggest surprise of the night, it was seeing the excellent Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds perform.
Second on the Pub Rock stage was a band I have seen once before, Together Pangea. They are good garage and indie rock sound. They had songs that made you want to get up and move on your feet. They felt like a perfect complement to the bands on this tour. While a lot of people were still hanging for the punk covers of the next band, these guys killed it with their set. I wouldn’t let Together Pangea slip under your radar next time they come through.
Of course, the big attraction was the guys doing a bunch of punk covers with Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Their personalities shine further with this band. Spike is an amazing and entertaining front man up there. Amusing was how Jay Bentley lets loose too, seeing a sillier side that isn’t on the Bad Religion stage. Fat Mike isn’t playing with the band these days, but still some great stuff being filled in on bass. Plus there is the amazing guy from Lagwagon, which Spike called Jerry Cape for most the set. Joey Cape whispered into the microphone not to ruin a good gig for him by telling Spike his real name.
The set itself was a fantastic treat too, with covers from multiple genres and albums of the Gimmes Gimmes. Better was that before just about every song, Spike made sure to throw in “This is a cover.” They played plenty of favorites, including one I would have expected to be an encore but wasn’t, “I Believe I Can Fly.” At one point they had their stage hands hold out a disco ball and flashlight while the lights lowered for a slow song. They joked that is big budget effects. Another cool part was Spike did two Uke-Hunt parts of the set, bringing out the ukulele and playing. This night was fun as heck, and I can’t wait to catch the Gimme Gimmes again at Punk Rock Bowling in a couple weeks.
