MC Lars & The Aquabats

Firstly, i want to apologise about the quality of the photos, the lighting was horrible for pictures :)

When i first saw MC Lars supporting Bowling for Soup in 2005, honestly, i didn't think it was

that good. A few months later, i decided to listen to some again and realised it was actually very good. So i went and bought some CD's. I then went to see him live at the Met Lounge in

Peterborough and thought it was great. Since then, i have been waiting for his new CD and hopefully a tour. A year or so later, i sent him an e-mail asking about a tour, and he promised one in 2009. So i waited. Out comes the new album, so i download it straight away. While different to previous albums, it has the same vibe as the old ones and is fantastic to listen to. When i checked up on his tour dates, the only one i could see locally was in London with some group called 'The Aquabats'. I had never heard of these guys before, so i checked out their Myspace and decided i was going

to like it before i had even heard anything. I listened to one song, 'Look at Me (I'm a Winner)' and decided i needed to go to this gig. I went off to London and bought a couple of tickets, and couldn't wait.

When i got there, i had a questionable burger from a kebab shop nearby, and waited outside. When it comes to going in, the merch stand is significantly better than the previous gig i went to, so i bought the CD and went on inside. I wandered in as some band called 'All Bright' were playing. It was alright. Nothing spectacular, i thought, but the frontman was very funny. He must have realised that people wouldn't be all that interested in them, and yet somehow managed to gain the attention of the entire audience with apparent ease. By the end of their short set, the whole crowd was swaying and cheering in unison.

On come the next band, Failsafe and they are quite good. The singer comes on jumping and shouting and doing the usual things. Though after a while, they just got boring. None of the songs jumped out at me enough for me to remember them after they finished, let alone after the show, and therefore the haven't done enough to impress me. However, the band did have two sets to perform as they played the instruments for MC Lars, which was good.

After a bit of a wait, out comes Lars dressed in the Aquabats costume. The light blue licra perhaps not the most flattering of all outfits, but it doesn't stop him. He comes out onstage and plays one of the best set i coudl have hoped for. Easily flowing between new and old songs, the set was as much for fans of the enw album as those who prefer the Graduate/Laptop etc. Once he got the crowd going, he did a very impressive song introduced by "This is our take on a poem by Edgar Allen Poe" - you guess it. Mr Raven. The song that got me into Lars, and i was glad he played it, he also played Hot Topic is Not Punk Rock, Download This Song and iGeneration. The large screen behind them played through music videos while the song was playing, and other helpful videos either for comedic effect or to get a point across. This Gigantic Robot Kills is so much better to sing along to when there are a thousand or so other people and it is ridiculously loud. Hearing the near deafening cry of hundreds of Lars fans screaming "Ska is not dead!" as loud as they can was awesome. This, however, was topped only by the fact that MC Bat Commander came onstage for the chorus, due to the lack of Suburban Legends who recorded it. Then we got It's not easy being green, and True Player for Real, both of which went down very well and got a huge response from the crowd.

When Lars left, we had a half hour or so wait while the stage was set up for the Aquabats. I hadn't seen these before, but had heard their stage shows were ridiculous so had quite high hopes for them. The lights go down and a video starts playing on the screen. It shows the Aquabats riding horses across some dirt field thing, tieing them up and running into a building. When they go through the door on the video, they run onto the stage. It was well planned, but i think funnier because they were performing at a venue in a shopping centre so the video made even less sense than it normally would. Again, the Light Blue licra suits were perhaps not the most flattering costumes for the band to wear, but when your band identitiy is a superhero, what else is there?

Even after the first couple of songs i could tell the Aquabats were a band that went to a gig and gave it their all, especially the frontman Mr Bat Commander. That guy didn't stand still for longer than 5 seconds at a time all night. What amazed me most about these guys is despite having been going for 15 years or so, they appear to put more time and energy into their stage show than most new bands whoa re just starting out. Which is odd, because usually bands who are just starting out try hard because they want to be noticed. These guys have been noticed, and the fact thaqt they still appear to try so hard just shows how worthwhile it is going to their shows. For the most part, however, the show was quite normal. Song, talk, song, song, etc. However about halfway through, a giant golden buddha wandered onstage.

After a slight disruption to the show due to the "haunted idol" beating up most of the band, they realised the only way to defeat the idol was to use the last loaf of "Magic Bread" they had. Unfortunately, it had run out of magic, so the audience needed to touch it to get magic back. This was never going to work, as soon as the loaf of bread got near the audience, it was ripped to shreds and shared between the crowd. The fate of the Aquabats was nearing a deadly end, with the bread gone they had no way to detroy the Idol. Suddenly, a weird green thing comes onstage and Bat Commander just yells "Look - It's Brobee!" Now, to most people this won't mean anything, but 'Brobee' is a character from popular childrens TV show 'Yo Gabba Gabba', and apparently is strong enough to defeat Haunted Buddha Statues. One the green thing had defeated the evil idol, Brobee and Bat Commander decided it would be an appropriate time for a dance. And dance they did.

A short while after this, Bat Commander looked into the audience, and told them to put their hand in front of their face and repeat a sentence about the confidence. Ending with the line, "I will look at myself and think 'Look at me... I'm a winner". After the audience recited this, there was a momentary pause as they realised what had actually been said, then they went nuts. After that song, everyone went quiet and a new song started about pirates. Halfway through this song, everyone went quiet and there was a struggle to look between the band and the large attraction growing in the centre of the floor. The band looked very confused as to why there was a large gap in the audience with not much going on. Then Mr Bat Commander shouted "Are you breakdancing?! About time!!", so some guys were breakdancing, then someone did a frontflip and everyone cheered. Bat Commander then cleared his throat to get everyones attention and said "So ANYWAY", to which everyone burst out laughing and the song continued. This was nearing the end of the show, and i was glad to see i had finally gone to a gig and managed to stay til the end (trains tend to force me to leave early). The video came back on and they got onto their horses and rode off into the sunset.

I think that gig was one of the best i have been to in a long, long time, and the Aquabats deserve every bit of attention they get and so much more. There is so much potential in that band i can't believe they aren't bigger. If you get the chance to see them Aquabats i strongly reccomend you do it - i know i will next time they come over.