Front man Reese Roper came on stage dressed in light colored spandex emblazoned with girlie unicorns. On his back he wore butterfly wings and on his head was a silver, sparkly tiara. Add the large, dark rimmed glasses and you get a faint idea of what this band is all about. None of them holds still for long. They’re either running about the stage, doing leaps, or it’s two of the horn players kicking each other as they play their respective instruments, or it’s Reese Roper doing pratfalls all over the stage. At times I didn’t know where to focus my eyes because they were all doing something, yet you didn’t want to watch the horn players kicking each other and miss one of Reese’s pratfalls.
At one point drummer Andrew Verdecchio demanded the mic and proceeded to growl out a mock version of Pearl Jam’s Jeremy. Another time he did a cymbal solo where he banged his cymbals for all of three seconds, spun a drum stick in his hand, tossed it in the air, and caught it. This, of course, resulted in raucous cheers from the packed like sardines crowd. None of the members of Five Iron Frenzy are upstaged by anyone. If the drummer’s antics, the horn players child like playing and the pratfalls of Reese Roper weren’t enough, Reese performed a quick dance routine where he crossed his arms and did several squats in quick succession, proving he’s not only a singer and comedian, but very athletic and agile. When he fell on his back onto the stage floor before leaping up, then asked a security guard manning the stage to give him an Olympic score. The guard gave him an eight.
After about the third song the spandex and tiara were shed and replaced with boring street clothes, but the dark rimmed glasses remained. When Reese told the joke, “Someone asked me if I wear boxers or briefs and I told them, umm . . . Depends,” you could hear scattered groans throughout the room.
Some of the songs they played were Handbook for the Sellout (my favorite), Every New Day and the obligatory Oh, Canada.
Five Iron Frenzy (aside from the aforementioned) are as follows: Micah Ortega – lead guitar, vocals, Nathanael “Brad” Dunham –trumpet, Dennis Culp – trombone, vocals, Leanor Ortega “Jeff the Girl” – saxophone, vocals, Sonnie Johnston – guitar, Scott Kerr – guitar, bass, vocals.
This has to be one of the most entertaining shows I’ve ever attended and I’m so happy Five Iron Frenzy decided to get back together after having broken up a few years back. The world is a better place for it.
Preceding FIF was Seattle legend Mike Herrera of MXPX fame. He played an acoustic set, just him and a guitar and a drummer who looked like he hadn’t even reached adolescence yet.
He opened his set with Secret Weapons and almost immediately broke a guitar string. After attempting to plow through his set, his drummer Brad, finally took the guitar backstage to change the string. During this time Mike walked the stage talking of things like spiders crawling on him, before the guitar made its triumphant return. The highlight, besides the congenial ad libbing, was his rendition of Rancid’s Olympia, WA. For his finale, after several repeated requests, he performed everyone’s favorite MXPX song (including mine), Punk Rock Show. Everyone sang along word for word!
Opening the entire set was a band originally from Guyton, GA, but now hailing from Portland, Oregon, was Showbread (supposedly the name comes from a biblical reference that Jesus used to show how Christianity isn’t so much about rules but about love).
Front man Josh Dies totally channeled Mick Jagger’s moves, yet there was much about him that reminded me of David Johansen. Periodically Dies would stop and tell amusing anecdotes before the band would whip into their next song. And speaking of whip, the three musicians in the front loved to whip their hair back and forth and often. This is a hard working band. They produced enough energy on stage to power a major city, yet they barely broke a sweat and every pretty little hair on their collective heads stayed in place. I don’t know how they did it.
Showbread is a fun band and young. When Dies told stories of lying back sixteen or seventeen years ago when his future rang him on the telephone to tell him there was a good possibility he would be on stage in fifteen years, my thoughts were sixteen or seventeen years ago, Dies would have been lying back in his crib. This band (at least as appearances go) are that young. At any rate, I expect his future will be ringing him back any day to tell him his band is destined for the big time. There is much potential here and they put on a great show. Besides Dies, Showbread consists of Patrick Porter – bass and Garrett Holmes – synthesizer. No word on who drummed with them this night.
