Cake’s Unlimited Sunshine Tour, Sewell, NJ

January 15th, 2008 - by Dave

Experimental, Festivals, Jersey, Philly, Rock, Shows

We like to keep things fresh at 52 Shows. Concert reviews normally go up within a week of the show. But it’s taken my brain a few weeks to process the events that I witnessed at a stop of Cake’s Unlimited Sunshine Tour music festival in New Jersey last month.

The night involved:

• a high school auditorium
• a tuba fueled sexy asshole
• a little person dancing hand-in-hand on stage with an elderly man
• the droning of bland ragtime-carnie-surf-muzak
• a heated trivia contest over a Stone Pine sapling
• and lots and lots and lots of vibraslap

After a series of intense counseling sessions, I’m finally ready to talk about it.

First off, a new venue has appeared recently on Philly concert listings. It’s called the Commerce Bank Arts Centre located in lovely Sewell, NJ. Tegan and Sara made a stop there in November. And it was the location of this Unlimited Sunshine show in December.

Apparently “Arts Centre” is codeword for “high school auditorium.” The Washington Township high school building.

The lobby area was filled with holiday student art installments and floating mobiles. The only refreshments around were soft pretzels, candy, and water sold by children in the lobby. In fairness to the good people of Sewell, it is a very large high school auditorium seating up to 2,500 people. And the seats were quite comfy.

But seriously, I quit hanging around high schools a few years after college.

Agent Ribbons opened the night. They’re a two-lady drum and guitar act. They’ve got a White Stripes meets Ani DiFranco feel. Eh, not really my thing. But the singer really belted out their songs, carrying them on her voice alone.

Agent Ribbons, courtesy of kimmay01

Next up was Oakley Hall, a trippy Americana band from Brooklyn. The high school AV club did a TERRIBLE job with the sound system and Oakley Hall suffered the brunt. Selected instruments and vocals were completely dropped from the first few Oakley Hall songs. The band pushed through the crappy setup begging for adjustments in between songs. It was mostly unlistenable due to the sound issues.

After that disaster the Brazilian Girls took the stage. Singer Sabina Sciubba sauntered out in a top hat with the lights low to the sound of a crushing techno beat. Next, a man appeared with a tuba and began vigorously step dancing to the beat. I honestly couldn’t hear a tuba. But a dude strutting around surrounded by a tuba larger then himself certainly makes worthy stage-decoration.

The stiff NJ crowd didn’t know what to make of the Brazilian Girls. Folks nearby muttered something like “Is this for real?” Right around that time they played a song called Sexy Asshole. If you haven’t heard it, it’s sung mostly in German except for the parts where Sabina yells “SEXY ASSHOLE!” This really excited the stepping/tuba dude along with two girls in the audience who took to dancing in the auditorium aisles.

Slowly, a few people migrated out of their seats to the front of the auditorium. Sabina invited them up onto the stage. Security had a shit fit. But the crowd eventually won out and loads of people stormed the gigantic stage. The rest of the Girls’ set was a dance party with Sabina singing completely out of sight from somewhere within the crowd.

And with a throbbing crowd on stage, things turned Twin Peaks. First, a shirtless teenage boy wiggled out to the front of the crowd. Creepy. Then a little person emerged. Woah. Next, a bearded, elderly dude popped out and he was disco dancing. Holy Crap. The little person and the elderly guy locked eyes, joined up, and danced together, hand in hand. My brain melted.

Brazilian Girls on Letterman, courtesy of mattedread

Soon after, the curtains closed and San Fran’s King City setup up shop outside the curtains. At first their Latin inspired, big band, surf rock sound was goofy. It was fun. But it just wouldn’t end. Every song turned into a battle between the guitarist and the drummer to see who could cheese-up a song more. The drummer usually won. At which point somebody in the band shouted “ONE MORE SONG!” again. And again. And again. And again.

Eventually, they did leave. The curtains opened and Cake was ready to rock. They worked through their hits, gathering together between songs to decide what to play next. Cake is apparently so bad-ass they don’t need a set list.

Cake (and vibraslap), courtesy of YamboVid

Singer John McCrea took a break from his beloved vibraslap and attempted a few stories in between songs. He rattled off tid-bits about the environment and conditions in third-world countries. But obnoxious yellers in the crowd shouted him down every time. He seemed very annoyed.

But the yelling didn’t totally shake McCrea’s holiday spirit. Towards the end of the night he offered up a small potted evergreen to whoever could identify the exact tree variety. He called on people in crowd. There were screams for blue spruce, douglas fir, ponderosa, holly, cypress, balsam, redwood…

If this list seems long, the schtick felt much longer during the show. In the end no one guessed that it was a Stone Pine, the source of pine nuts. WTF?

A bunch of folks were picked for wearing red sweaters. They went up on stage and received tree saplings to plant in their yards. The only catch was they had to leave their contact info behind and swear an oath to send Cake yearly photos of themselves standing next to their trees.

Cake was great. But the Unlimited Sunshine experience was well worth the price of admission.

Cake - War Pigs

Cake - Short Skirt, Long Jacket

Like these songs? Go buy Cake’s new B-sides and rarities…