Reel Big Fish 4th March 2011

I saw Reel Big Fish a while ago at the Junction and reviewed it already on here, so i'll keep thi one short. When i heard they were playing again, i decided i'd go. Ska music is such a happy genre, no matter how you're feeling it cheers you up. Unfortunately, due to some unforseen circumstances, i arrived late and missed the first support act. What i did manage to see, however, was a band called The Skints. I'm not sure what genre you would call them, but they're wiki page says "Reggae/Punk/Dub/Rock/Fusion". I have never seen a crowd of people more unsure of how to dance at a concert before. Turns out, they were really good. The music was such a bizarre mix, it was hard not to enjoy some part of it.

After that came Suburban Legends. They were with RBF last time i saw them, so i was really excited to see them again. Once again, they put on a very good show and the music was fantastic, but i think they were better first time around. The excitement was there, the music was brilliant, but something seemed to be missing. I'm not sure if it was because it was very near the end of a long tour and they were getting tired of doing the same routine every night, or i just remember last time being amazing. They had even started to synchronise some dances for them abdn to do whilst their instruments were not needed (which meant they were all very short dances). About halfway through the show, they threw a curveball into their set playing 'The Bed Intruder Song'.

They played several songs i'd already heard, and a lot of songs from their new album, which they claimed to have "Only printed 50 copies of". When they said this, i assumed it was a joke to get us to buy the album, i bought it anyway, but when i got home i checked it out and there is no record of the album i own. Weird. It's brilliant. By this point in the show, everyone was going kind of crazy and having a great time, unfortunately for a lot of people, a massively fat guy happened to be trying to start mosh pits throughout the whole set. I have no problem with mosh pits at shows, i do, however, have problems with a 400lb whale diving at me when i have expressed no interest in entering a mosh pit.

The great thing about music like this, is it's just so happy, that when people get into it, they REALLY get into it. They played 'high fives' to which everyone who knew the song exploded into dancing and high fiving everyone they could see. At some point, someone dressed as a tiger ran on stage and dived off into the crowd. Having missed the first support act, i couldn't tell you if he was from there, or if he was just someone they had to run out on stage at some point, but it was certainly a strange event.

After their set, we waited around and Reel Big Fish came on. Starting out with Sell Out, the whole crowd screaming, dancing, jumping around, it was crazy. Once again, whale boy barges his way into the crowd and starts ruining peoples fun by crushing them, but by this point people have just started pushing him back. Unfortunately, after a few songs, i was starting to feel a bit ill. I'd had hardly any liquid all day and eaten just before the show, which is never a good combo. Thankfully, the Junction is quite a small venue, and even right at the back you still have a really good view of the show. As i was expecting, RBF played a wonderful show, blasting out a mixture of their own songs, some covers and throwing in a little bit of crowd banter here and there.

One of the moments that really stuck out, was when they played on of their songs in different styles. They played the same bit of it as a country song, a dance song, a heavy metal song, and it was absolutely brilliant. If playing venues the size of the Junction for their 20th anniversary tour gets to the band, they don't show it. They come on stage with such joy that you'd think it was their first show. If they tour again, i'll go, and i strongly recommend everyone else do the same.