[2003.09.13 - 07:00 P.M.] I Got Wet
It was almost a year ago that I was driving around in the desert outside Las Vegas with a couple of old
High School friends. Adrian, who knows my musical tastes almost as well as I do, popped a CD in the stereo.
"Who's this?" I asked. "It's Andrew W.K." he replied (and, yes, he even
said it as a hyperlink. Adrian's amazing.) "Never heard of him." "Trust me, you're going to
love him." About five seconds later, I heard the opening chords of It's Time To Party. "Oh! It's that
song from that Travelocity commercial where the kids trash the house while their parents are away!"
Well, it turns out Adrian was right, as
usual. I loved every damned song on A.W.K.'s first album,
I Get Wet (left). I think it was in my car's CD player for about six straight months. His songs are
short. They are loud. They are fun. And they are very, very simple. AC/DC sounds like Bach by comparison.
A.W.K.'s sound is a kind of revved-up, hyper-produced, 80's throw-back pop/rock/metal. But that doesn't really
capture it. To get a better idea of what he's like, check out this
Tapefuzz review. He's not for everyone. On my return home, when I brought up A.W.K. to my friend Erik, he
said to me "Look, with all due respect, if you like him, you are a retard." (After reading that Rolling Stone
had given the album a four-star
review, Erik amended his statement to "OK, you're not retarded. But you are still wrong.")
Anyhow, enough background. About two weeks ago, my beautiful and thoughtful fiancee spotted a poster saying
Andrew would be playing at a local club. And so it was that I saw him live for the first time last night.
I was not disappointed.
The venue, Pearl Street night club in Northampton, MA,
was great. It's the kind of place I like to see bands in, but rarely do (usually I wind up going to concerts in
civic-center/stadium venues, or in one of those god-forsaken, accoustically awful open-air theaters). The beer
was way cheaper than we expected, and you could see the stage from anywhere in the place. Oh, and the sound
level was about ten times what the room required. In other words, it was perfect. The first opening band,
Vaux, sounded pretty awful from outside,
one of those alt-metal bands with a singer who shrieks every word, so Tracy and I repaired to the bar across the
street for a few drinks prior to heading into the club. The second opening band,
High On Fire was a death metal outfit that actually wasn't half bad. (Long live the goddamned double bass
drum, dude.) Ah, but then, after a long, long interlude, came the moment we'd all been waiting for.
There was only one real choice for the opener. Everybody knew it was coming. And when It's Time To Party
erupted from the amps, the crowd went nuts. So began an hour of fist-pumping, head-banging, crowd-surfing, and
general euphoria. Although the tour is ostensibly in support of W.K.'s new album, The Wolf, the set was
heavily weighted towards material from I Get Wet. Highlights included the aforementioned opener, Party
Hard, Ready to Die, She is Beautiful (also known, in my household, as "the Tracy Song"), and
the show-closer, I Get Wet. There were at least two songs from the new album, Tear It Up and Your
Rules, both of which went over quite well, considering the album's only been out for a few days and most of
the crowd couldn't possibly have known them. Hey, it's Andrew W.K., right? You're either going to love the stuff
instantly or not. These were no different.
Andrew is electric in person. He's got boatloads of charisma and he connects with the crowd effortlessly. Not
a lot of talk. None of that trite "How are you motherfuckers doing out there!!! Let's make some noise!!!" Nope.
He likes to spray the crowd with water a lot. And he never, ever, stops smiling. Here's this huge biker-looking
party dude up on stage, and you think he'd be playing-up the bad-ass factor, but no, he's smiling like a
five-year-old kid with a new toy the whole way through the show.
The high-point of the evening was the closing song. All night there was a line of people by the amps waiting
to get their ten seconds on stage with the band before diving back into the crowd. This was encouraged. Some
guy or girl would make their way to center stage and Andrew would drape his arm around them while still hollering
out his vocals. Couple times the visiting fan was allowed to join in. Anyhow, Tracy kept saying "Come on. You know
you want to go up there. You'll hate yourself if you don't." I'm not a big one for going up in front of any sort of
crowd, and I really thought I was going to pussy out. But by the time the band started into I Get Wet, I
was a crazed maniac, and one last urging from my woman had me climbing up and clawing my way into the throng. That's
right, during the closing song there must have been thirty of us up there. It was a madhouse. Sweat (mostly my own)
was sheeting off of me. The push and pull of the crowd made it almost impossible to keep my feet. At one point I
thought I was headed off the front of the stage for my first crowd surf, but I managed to fight the current and
get back to the drum riser, in front of which stood The Man himself. I got a high-five in before he marched into the
center of the crowd on the stage. The bass player, who was nearby, was kind enough to let a few of us hammer out
some notes for him as the song crescendoed. Then A.W.K. goes by up in the air, surfing the crowd on stage. It was
a Rock and Roll Moment.
Today, my neck is sore. My arms are sore. My ears are still ringing, it seems, and I'm feeling a little crispy.
Hell, I'm not a teenager anymore, although I must say I can still bring the head-snap when the music calls for it.
My advice? If you like your music loud and dumb and happy, check for a tour date in your town. It's a show you
won't soon forget.
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