Wheatus/Mc Frontalot/Math The Band/City Stereo

Mr Kyps, Poole

I’m guessing that for a few people, tonight was a night for reminiscing, with Wheatus being one of those feel good bands whose most popular tracks such as Teenage Dirtbag were released over 10 years ago. There was decent turnout for the opening band City Stereo, who got things warmed up with their catchy pop rock. Having travelled from just down the road in Salisbury, this currently unsigned band have just finished up a 14 date tour supporting McFly.

Judging from their performance tonight this has given them a huge amount of confidence and they really did shine. They seem to be oozing with talent and have songs that get stuck firmly in your head, I imagine a combination of this and the exposure they surely must have had from the McFly tour, I don’t expect they will be unsigned for long.

I was familiar with all the acts this evening except Math the Band, but after tonight I feel like a gap in my life that I wasn’t aware of has now been filled. I genuinely struggle to find the words to explain them, but I’m going to give it a go. Just think Super Mario, on acid, mixed with thrash metal and dancing. I could just leave it at that but I donít think it would do them justice. They are a two piece outfit who use synthesisers and video game noises, their voices, a bit of drum kit and a guitar to make songs that are just so ridiculously insane, you can’t help but like them. I found myself dancing away and smiling throughout their whole set. They probably arenít to everybodyís taste, but they certainly went down well with a lot of people in the room.

Gallery: 1–2–3–4–5–6–7–8–9

This alternative style of entertainment continued with MC Frontalot, who tonight performed with Wheatus as his backing band. With songs that cover themes such as beating the final boss on videogames and how grammar is important, this truly is that frequently chart-topping genre nerdcore. I had only ever heard MC Frontalot through his collaborations with MC Lars so it was exciting to hear his solo material, and it seem to excite the crowd as well who were more than happy to join in with the obligatory audience participation required parts. His performance was perhaps not quite as electrifying as Math the Band’s, but I certainly couldn’t fault it and there were smiles all round.

For a band that I only really associate with one song, Wheatus really surprised me tonight, partly due to the amount of people that seemed to know every song they played and also due to the laidback friendly attitude that they had on stage. Instead of a set list they rather bravely invited the audience to call out songs they wanted to hear. I had a terrible feeling that only one song would be requested, but it would seem that a lot of loyal fans were in attendance tonight and I was treated to hearing some material that was truly well written and executed. Even with whisky being passed around the stage for “medicinal purposes”, they played every song with a passion and skill that was great to hear. A Weezer cover was thrown in, evidently returning a favour to Weezer who covered Teenage Dirtbag at Leeds/Reading in 2010. Every song had a large proportion of the crowd singing along, especially the hits such as A Little Respect. The set came to a close with the obvious choice of Teenage Dirtbag, for which all the members of the previous bands were called on stage to join in with and MC Frontalot even remixed part of the song in a truly original style. Nearly every voice in the crowd was singing along in what was a heart warming experience. They even came back on for an encore. It was a night I won’t be forgetting for a while.

Set-List
Lemonade
Truffles
Sunshine
Leroy
A Little Respect
Anyway
BMX Bandits
My Name Is Jonas(Weezer Cover)
Hey Mr Brown
Wannabe Ganster
Teenage Dirtbag
The Song That I Wrote When You Dissed Me

Videos
Wheatus