Reel Big Fish x2
One of my slightly obsessive tendancies is to go and see bands live multiple times on the same tour - on the basis that there’s only a finite amount of times I’ll ever see them live, so may as well make the most of it. This led me to going to see Reel Big Fish’s recent headline tour, with support from Big D & The Kids Table and Sonic Boom Six at both Nottingham’s Rock City and Camden’s Koko.
Both times all of the bands were awesome. Unfortunately we arrived only half way through SB6’s set at Rock City, but it was okay as their set was mostly made up of new stuff, and of course, I’m the twat who says “I prefer their old stuff”. They did do a couple of old tunes though - and the new stuff is ace anyway. I liked how they end their set with a riff (I think that’s the correct technical term) from Killing in the Name, as a nice callback to Sound of a Revolution. I also like how in one song (I forget which) they sing the chorus to Ghost Town by The Specials.
Big D also played a fun set both times - which in Nottingham also included a Specials cover: Little Bitch. I can’t work out why I love Big D so much - I can barely identify with any of their songs as they’re all about drinking, partying and objectifying women whereas I’m about as fun as a Wikipedia editor on the first day of a new tax year. Interesting to note that their touring guitarist is the bloke from Suburban Legends, who I saw support RBF last year - who I particularly like not just for the shamelessly poppy-ska, but for the bizarrely well coordinated choreography.
And Reel Big Fish, as you might predict, were excellent. They don’t do anything revolutionary, but you wouldn’t want them to. Most of the songs have the same structure and sound similar anyway, but it’s that familiarity that makes them a solid, enjoyable band. They’re basically a tribute band to themselves but this is no bad thing - they opened the set with Sell Out, so you immediately know that they’re going to end with Take On Me, and played a set full of their most well known songs punctuated by some funny funny jokes and a stack of covers - Monkey Man (again, The Specials), Brown Eyed Girl (No Idea) and Enter Sandman. Much like when I saw them three times in the same week in 200..8.. I think, they got Laila K from SB6 on stage to sing the female part in She’s Got A Girlfriend Now, and they got the Big D guitarist mentioned above on to play guitar on another song. This was particularly notable for the London leg of the tour when the bloke reprised his outfit from the cover of this album, and had a large deliberate hole in the back of his trousers. Madness.
I bloody love ska.
