Ska may be dead, but its fans are refusing to accept the
fact.
On Friday, the Aquabats and Streetlight Manifesto performed at
the El Rey Theatre. Like many of the recent ska shows in the L.A.
area, the concert had been sold out for weeks prior to the event.
The dress code consisted of black-and-white checkered clothing and
superhero outfits, creating a motley spectacle of checkerboard
patterns and masked crusaders for the ska cause.
Once inside, concertgoers were given aluminum foil to protect
themselves from what the Aquabats call harmful evil superhero
transmissions. Foil outfits were created to protect any part of the
body ““ from gas masks to capes to crotch protectors. Foil
ninja stars and balls were thrown at the stage, the result of
frustrated individuals who could not get their foil helmets to stay
on their heads.
No Trigger opened the show. The five members, hailing from
central Massachusetts, kept the crowd entertained with their
fast-paced, melodic hardcore punk, clearly influenced by Dag Nasty
and the Circle Jerks.
Taking the stage in spacesuits, the three members of Supernova
got the crowd pumped up, especially with their song about
everyone’s favorite Wookiee, Chewbacca ““ complete with
guttural Wookiee grunts and chants of Chewy’s name.
Then the glint of a bass saxophone caught the eye of someone in
the audience. Someone screamed. The crowd roared. Mass chaos
ensued.
The seven-piece ska band Streetlight Manifesto took the stage,
inciting what looked like a full-on riot. Despite there being no
room to skank (the arm-swinging, leg-kicking ska dance), people did
it anyway, resulting in bruised shins and black eyes. The good news
was that when people fell, they only had to endure 10 kicks to
their body until helping hands pulled them off the floor. That is,
unless a crowd surfer fell on top of them.
Streetlight Manifesto started off with “Everything Went
Numb” and kept the energy up throughout the entire
performance. Almost everyone in the audience knew their songs by
heart and shouted the lyrics along with them, even screaming the
horn melodies.
The band left the stage to the chant of “four more
songs.” However, the Aquabats had yet to perform, and the
craziness the band inspires was about to reveal itself.
There was the man who hadn’t missed a Los Angeles Aquabats
show since 1996 ““ “back in the days when they still
threw food at the crowd” ““ and began referring to his
ex-girlfriends as the different girls who had to be pulled out of
the crowd in the Aquabats DVD.
There was the father dressed in a black spandex rash guard,
Aquabat helmet and red cape who let the MC Bat Commander throw his
4-year-old son, who also was donning the same outfit, off the stage
into the crowd. The father looked on proudly as his son flew 10
feet in the air into the crowd.
And finally, there’s the guy whose girlfriend fainted and
had to be passed over the barrier to the security guards. Her
boyfriend then tightened his grip on the guardrail and refused to
leave his front-row spot, even though there was still 20 minutes
before the Aquabats would take the stage. His excuse was that he
had driven 10 hours to see the Aquabats, and she had passed out at
the last show and was OK. He promised not to make her drive
home.
Although the Aquabats have long ditched their horn section and
ceased to be solely a ska band, they returned to their roots and
let Streetlight Manifesto take on wind instrument duties for songs
such as “Super Rad,” and their keyboardist picked up
his sax for other songs. Led by the MC Bat Commander, the band
donned blue rash guards and spandex helmets and claimed to be
superheroes from Aquabania saving the world by playing their
“nerdcore” music ““ a blend of ska, new wave,
electronica and punk. As always, the Aquabats put on a crazy show,
complete with monsters in lobster outfits, kids being crowd surfed
on pool raft toys, and random bottles of Gatorade thrown at the
crowd to quench their thirst. From the looks of things, everyone
went home satisfied.
““ Michelle Castillo
E-mail Castillo at mcastillo@media.ucla.edu.