Reel Big Fish, Norwich Uni
You know, I was really looking forward to this gig – then Goldfinger pulled out. Nevertheless I resolved to persevere and go instead of reclaiming my £14.50 – almost a third of my week’s rent, I should say. I saw Less Than Jake at this very same venue a few months ago and it was excellent – a good crowd that looked out for each other, energy dripping from the walls and an atmosphere akin to that of the best party ever. Unfortunately the only thing that remained constant was the venue.
I missed the entirety of The Matches set due to my whoring of my own wares at the door – trying to give CDs advertising pub gigs to people old enough to actually get into the pub venues is an impossible task. That meant ZEBRAHEAD were my first band of the evening and having got ‘MFZB’ a few weeks previously I knew exactly what to expect. Soaring punk rock choruses, chunky melodic verses and razor-sharp riffs all spoiled by the presence of a meathead rapper with the lyrical ability of a pre-teen. Seriously, when Zebrahead play punk they’re excellent at it, displaying a command of melody and writing fantastically catchy songs, but as soon as that fucking rapper opens his mouth the effect is utterly ruined. Rude boy posturing and those ‘wicky wicky’ hand gestures at a punk gig? Times, they have a-changed. I’m not averse to bands that try and mix genres at all – I’ve championed Ye Wiles and Sonic Boom Six for doing precisely that, but this sounds like punk with a bit of rubbish rap stuck on top. Even with the genuinely funny Darkness cover (If Derren from Goldfinger could show up, why couldn’t they all come? And actually play?) Zebrahead get (8) for the punk bits and (1) for the rap sections – overall they left a sour taste in my mouth and frustratingly so – they could be excellent…but yet…
Now for the band that wasn’t Goldfinger (Goldfinger bootleg merch was still onsale outside the venue – how does that work?), Toronto’s BILLY TALENT. And they were a damn good band, knowing exactly how to make up for the ‘finger’s no-show – by playing a tight, economic set of abrasive punk rock. They have a vocalist who can shred glass with his screams and while I’m not usually a fan of screamed vocals they fitted perfectly tonight with BT’s scratchy riffs. Throwing themselves about with abandon they were by far the best band of the evening before chucking in the rapturously-received ‘Try Honesty’ second to last while the crowd sang along. BT have won a lot of fans without doing very much but on tonight’s evidence they’ve definitely got the raw talent and high calibre of songs to convince cynics that they’re not just a one-song pony (8).
And now for the headliners – the planet straddling REEL BIG FISH. Firstly, I just have to say that the crowd was awful – folding your arms across your chest and jumping on your toes is not dancing. Jumping directly up in the air over and over again while holding someone’s hand is not dancing. Jumping up and down and leaning into someone’s shoulder is not moshing. It was ridiculous watching groups of people who obviously only hung around with each other to make themselves look more punk try to act like they were having fun, when in fact they just looked stupid. One of the things that first attracted me to ska gigs was that everyone looked like they were having an amazing time and no one cared what they looked like – tonight people were far too self-conscious to have fun, and the pitiful amount of actual dancing was crushed immediately by meathead twats throwing forearms into people’s backs and pushing each other into small girls to try and look hard. Going back to the LTJ gig I remember seeing the entire dancefloor explode with each track, but every time RBF launched into another song the only movement was a rash of bouncing. It’s like people were too worried about protecting their wristbands to actually enjoy themselves and let go.
What compounded all this was the fact that Reel Big Fish aren’t a very good band. Granted, they’re slick and superb onstage, displaying admirable charisma and a genuine sense of humour, but save a few songs they’re embarrassingly average. Even faster songs like ‘Beer’ and ‘She’s Got A Girlfriend Now’ were swallowed up by the crowd without any return of energy, and the mid-tempo songs just seemed to blur into one. Even ‘Take On Me’ and ‘Where Have You Been?’ were dull – I don’t remember ever being so bored at a ska punk gig. RBF are just a one trick pony – with a few good horn lines (let’s make no mistake – on the rare occasion that they hit a fantastic melody they’re unbeatable) and a couple of standard riffs they’ve forged a career out of making the same song over and over again, and they all seem to contain the word “suck”. Ska punk has a bad reputation, and when RBF are supposed to be at the forefront of the genre it’s not hard to see why – without LTJ’s song-writing talent, Duff Muffin’s energy and melodic nous and Sublime’s groove it’s hard to see where they can go from here. Unless the next album is truly stunning, they’ll just be reduced to touring the famous songs forever until obscurity beckons. And it’s a shame because once, long ago, they weren’t bad (4)
Ben
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