It is a cold dark night on the street of Leeds but inside the walls of the Academy it is summer baby! Tonight we have a double headliner of California’s cheeriest as Reel Big Fish and Suburban Legends are here and they are up for a party!
Suburban Legends kick off the evening with the cheeriest set you are likely to see. They have it all. Big smiles, great audience participation, Disney covers (hey they are the Disney Land in house band so what do you expect?) and dance routines. You read that right. Dance routines and by God they are awesome. More bands need dance routines.
Tonight’s headliner is Reel Big Fish, who 24 years and eight albums in, show no sign of stopping. It seems every year they return to the UK and their popularity never seems to drop. Which in the ever changing world of music is actually pretty damn amazing.
As you look around you see straight away the differences in the people in attendance. Yes there are many people in Hawaiian shirts but then again there are kids, there are punks, there are heavy metal fans, Rude Boys, there are hippies, there are adults you can tell have come straight from work to be here.
The one thing they have in common? Reel Big Fish were (and are) a sound track to their teens/early twenties. This is the reason they still come and watch them year after year. Who doesn’t look back at the bands who defined your formative years and smile. Luckily for fans of this band they are still here.
It’s normally pretty much the same set every time but that doesn’t matter. The band always deliver. They know exactly how to work the crowd and they know exactly what the crowd want to hear. Reel Big Fish do a greatest hits set and the crowd sing just as loud back to the band. The band have a gift of being able to get a crowd to dance their asses off, sing their hearts out with smiles on their faces but this is a band with a dark side. Just sit down one day and really look at the lyrics to these songs you know all the words to without thinking. Songs like ‘PS You Suck’, ‘Sell Out’, ‘Everyone Else Is An Asshole’, ‘The Kids Don’t Like It’, etc. Here is a band that must have had some dark things happen in their past but wrap it up and throw it out as something so much happier. A ska/punk wolf in sheeps clothing.
The band close the night with a one too punch of covers, the first ‘Boss DJ’ by their late, great Californian brethrin Sublime and then of course their legendary cover of ‘Take On Me’ which causes the crowd to go ape shit (every single person here attempts the high note, every single person here fails).
It’s a tour de force of showmanship. As the crowd spill out onto the dank backstreets with smiles on their faces, you just know, they’ll be back next year.
