Tonight we’re squashed together with an excitable lot who wear checkered shirts, side lip-piercings and Converse (of course). Ready to skank and sweat, they swig down beer and fiddle with their phones in pre-gig impatience. Ska punk is still a thing it seems.
Huntington Beach’s Reel Big Fish kick off with the catchy ‘Everyone Else Is An Asshole’; a fuck-you anthem from their latest release, ‘Candy Coated Fury’. There’s no surprises found in their new material: it’s the same mixture of bravado and adolescent insecurity that drive the lyrics. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as they offer something that a lot of great musicians lack – a sense of fun and the occasional Hawaiian shirt.
Aaron Barrett is the only founding band member on stage tonight. Wearing a patched-up white jacket, he twirls around at opportune moments revealing the words “don’t hate me because I’m ska” on his back. During the performance, he’s every bit the energetic frontman but he really struggles to catch his breath at the close of each song. Peter Pan, he is not.
Old favourites ‘Sell Out’, ‘Trendy’, ‘Beer’ and ‘I Want Your Girlfriend To Be My Girlfriend Too’ are played, and the intervals are reserved for breath catching and fish jokes. Towards the end of ‘She Has A Girlfriend Now’, the song morphs into Carly Rae Jepson’s ‘Call Me Maybe’, a modern in-song gag.
The band share a chuckle when the saxophonist announces that he’ll be singing the “girl parts” on ‘I Know You Too Well To Like You Anymore’ in the absence of Julie Stoyer. Teenage jokes aside, he carries out the task very well, delivering lyrics such as “my prince charming is a bore” in the right key and with fabulous attitude.
The band’s first European tour date has played out well. Despite the decline in ska punk’s popularity since the late 90s, Reel Big Fish have still managed to sell out the Concorde. They’ve clearly got a few years left in them.
Concorde2, Wednesday 20th February 2013
Words by Nisha Bhakoo
Photos by Mike Tudor @ Studio85