As I waited for the show starring The Presidents of the United States of America to begin, great music streamed from the break tape and I found myself hearing bands such as the Sweet, the Runaways and the Sonics.
Then the show began right at nine as scheduled with some guy from LA called Mike Phirman. He began his act by doing some stand-up consisting of mostly sophomoric, formulaic jokes about tormenting his pets, ingesting pot and masturbation. Although he came across congenially, his stand-up routine drew forth mass heckling and booing from the crowd. Phirman then donned an acoustic/electric guitar and did a worthy impression of Luis Armstrong’s Wonderful World. This brought more enthusiastic applause from the audience. His next song was just him singing rapidly over and over, duck, monkey, chicken, while images of said animals were flashed behind him on a large screen. This was amusing and rather clever, especially when he ended the song with Goose and flashed an image of Tom Cruise. His finale consisted of him running the mike over different parts of his body and adding recorded sound effects. This was funny at first, but quickly got boring when the sound effects made fart noises ad nauseam. Most his jokes were unoriginal and sophomoric and I was glad when he was finally over.
The next act didn’t really thrill me much either. The Legendary Duo consists of Zander Schloss on acoustic/electric and Sean Wheeler on vocals. They performed a sort of country/folk style music complete with two-part harmony, but neither one of these guys had any sort of vocal range, nor was there any real power in their vocals, so all the songs quickly began to sound the same. Although they both seemed to have good audience rapport and joked around a bit with everyone, I’m sorry to say, I was also glad when they were finished because I was on the verge of falling asleep.
After hearing some more good songs from the break tape including Black Flag’s Six Pack, The Presidents came on stage and I immediately woke up. Front man Chris Ballew bounced onto the stage with child-like exuberance, and loaded with charisma. He dedicated the song Lady Bug to His little lady Katy, whom he mentioned he married on the same stage two years prior. He wore a white shirt with black and white striped tie and black shorts. Everything about this band is unconventional. New guitarist Andrew McKeag is the most rock star -looking member with long curls hanging to his shoulders, though he wore a bowler’s hat for much of the show while playing a guitar with an American flag painted on it. Drummer and founding member Jason Finn tore up the skins so ferociously I was surprised they didn’t catch fire. He looked like he had a brand new kit, though, so perhaps . . .
The concert continued (with Ballew strutting around the stage like a proud rooster) with one of their newer songs, Some Postman, then Ballew stated that they hadn’t played anything from their debut album yet so to atone, they’d play the entire album. This brought raucous cheers and the song Lump ensued (though I couldn’t help singing the Weird Al version), followed by Kitty and Peaches. When side one was finished, Ballew described how he had to take the record off and be careful not to get finger smudges on it, flip it over and place the needle back on. He added sound effects.
Ballew continued to leap, bounce and kick up his heels (literally) while strumming his bass. At one point he and McKeag swapped instruments by tossing their respective guitars to each other from about two feet away, before swapping back less dramatically a few short minutes later. The only cover performed was the old Buggles tune, Video Killed the Radio Star, and after an hour, the band left the stage. Encore chants of USA! USA! USA! spewed forth until the trio returned for another half hour, starting with Froggy and including Mixed Up Son of a Bitch, which reminded me of the Misfits’ I Ain’t No Goddamn Son of a Bitch. The Presidents play bouncy, catchy tunes with quirky lyrics and child-like humor and often it was difficult to tell if the band was having more fun than the audience. I’d surmise it was pretty equal, but this is a band that clearly loves playing with each other and just performing on stage. Ballew even stated he tries to make their songs make as little sense as possible. Their hour and a half show definitely more than made up for the lackluster opening acts and I’m sorry I haven’t made the effort to see them more often.
As a footnote, as we spilled out of the Showbox onto First Avenue, the first thing I encountered was someone dressed in a pink gorilla suit drumming on a bunch of plastic yellow buckets. I dropped a dollar into one of the buckets and shot a picture of said drumming pink gorilla. You don’t encounter that every day. For anyone who hasn’t gone to see The Presidents perform, do not miss them when they come ’round again. They are pure, unadulterated good, clean fun!
All photos property of Holly Homan, all rights reserved.
