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REVIEW: REEL BIG FISH, SUBURBAN LEGENDS, MIGHTY MONGO, & THE MAXIES 1/17/2013
Gweedo
The Gothic Theatre hosted another stellar lineup that was accompanied with a Living Social deal. For $37 you received two beers and admission to Reel Big Fish, Suburban Legends, Mighty Mongo, and The Maxies. All the bands had merchandise out trying to make a buck. Reel Big Fish had some great prices though. They were selling CDs for $5 to $10 with one of those CDs being their latest with the insert autographed by the entire band for $10. That’s an awesome deal in my eyes. Also they had $20 shirts and $40 hoodies, cheapest I’ve seen at a show. Suburban Legends had a decent selection as well that included a skate deck. Even with the deal the show started out pretty empty.
Gweedo
The Gothic Theatre hosted another stellar lineup that was accompanied with a Living Social deal. For $37 you received two beers and admission to Reel Big Fish, Suburban Legends, Mighty Mongo, and The Maxies. All the bands had merchandise out trying to make a buck. Reel Big Fish had some great prices though. They were selling CDs for $5 to $10 with one of those CDs being their latest with the insert autographed by the entire band for $10. That’s an awesome deal in my eyes. Also they had $20 shirts and $40 hoodies, cheapest I’ve seen at a show. Suburban Legends had a decent selection as well that included a skate deck. Even with the deal the show started out pretty empty.
Those that showed up early were rewarded with an acoustic performance by Reel Big Fish drummer Ryland Steen. He has a new solo album coming out called This Magnificent that he played songs from. Ryland sang and played guitar and pointed out that there normally is a full band so just pretend there are more instruments playing. Surprisingly he has a nice voice. I’m interested to see where the project goes. The performance was good acoustic unfortunately only a few people were around to witness it.
The Maxies officially kicked off the concert. This Greenland band was hilariously offensive. They are like the Hollywood Undead of punk. The members wore masks, all red attire, and had a great stage presence. Their songs are very witty but may offend some with content and cursing. Personally I had no problem with them. I hadn’t seen them before but I thought they were pretty entertaining. During one song they had a big polar bear come out and dance. More people had showed up and the band got the crowd to start skanking. At the end the lead singer came out in the crowd to give free hugs.
Mighty Mongo was amazing! This was my first time knowing this Florida band even existed. They had a sexy female lead singer rocking a keytar! Also they had a good looking dude on bass singing that was really funny. They had lots of fun and energy on the stage which kept the crowd entertained. The band kicked little beach balls into the crowd. They had some quality vocals. The coolest part of their set was they pulled trumpet player Chris Lucca, from Suburban Legends and they covered Cake, “Never There”. It was great and Chris Lucca is way talented.
Another band that I had never heard of was Suburban Legends. I am now informed of their existence and talent. They had me once they started playing a ska cover of the DuckTales theme song, of the late 80’s Disney cartoon. The band played a bunch of covers from some of my childhood favorite cartoon songs and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”. Lead guitarist Brian Klemm sang a couple covers as well and did excellent. He did a trust fall into the crowd. Lead singer Vincent Walker stood in on guitar while Klemm was singing. They were very high energy and surprisingly the young crowd sang along to the covers. The band had some humorous chorography. I loved the horn section of Chris Lucca on trumpet and Brian Robertson on trombone. They were extremely talented and entertaining in their stage antics. Their tone was nice and full and they had great pitch. The band had the crowd do a friendship pit where everyone just linked arms. It was a good show that had a big crowd. A fun fact about the band is that Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan was their drummer before joining Avenged Sevenfold. I feel like I’ve been living in a cave since I have never heard of these guys.
http://mightymongoband.us/Finally it was time for the main event, Reel Big Fish. At this point the Gothic was packed top to bottom. Ska is not dead. This performance was everything I wanted it to be. They played all their hits, was very entertaining, and very high energy. These guys are no strangers regarding how to have a great show. It seems like they have been around forever which is about 1991. After all this time they still sounded fantastic. Trumpet player Johnny Christmas was sporting an interesting outfit on stage and was also entertaining. They played two songs with Lindsay Vitola fromMighty Mongo. The fans were crowd surfing. Also they came out and played an encore. I don’t know why I waited so long to see these guys live again but I won’t delay next time.
This show was the best way to kick off my concert year. It ended around 11:30pm. I came away in a very good mood which you should expect from bands like these. The Maxies were going around pushing their CDs pretty hard afterwards. Chris from Suburban Legends was on the sidewalk also selling CDs. Reel Big Fish’s Johnny Christmas was out meeting people. I loved every performance and hope to catch each band again the next time they come through Denver.
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