Photo:
On the strength of openers Allister, the evening doesn't look too promising. Anodyne, bland and ever so slightly wearisome, the four-piece are nonetheless competent and radio-friendly. But since when has that been enough? With a guitarist bearing more than a passing resemblance to Billie-Joe Armstrong, and punk-u-like guitars worn below waist level, they wear their influences on their sleeve, and as expected, they're the watered-down sound of too many Blink 182 records. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with them, but it's uninspiring regardless. Not that the rabidly pogo-ing throng of fourteen year-olds seem too bothered, mind.
Second up are the much more promising Teen Idols, who look like The Stranglers (eurgh, as they do now) but sound more like the Grease soundtrack filtered through the punkier side of Rancid. This can only ever be A Good Thing. If punk-pop decided to search for a new sound, it should stop here.
We've been running low on ska so far, however, and Washington's finest The Pietasters unite the already-buzzing crowd with a full-on skankathon that damn near makes the place explode. There's teenagers doing conga-lines, there's adults stood at the side fondly recalling Bad Manners at their peak
and to top it all off, the greatest ska frontman since Suggs bellows his way through a thoroughly entertaining set of Two-Tone-tinged classics. Great stuff. If The Polyphonic Spree should have been parachuted in to Baghdad to stop all this war nonsense, then The Pietasters should be dropped off next to kick off the party.
By the time Less Than Jake finally arrive onstage, to a reworded version of the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme ("their mission: to fuck their girlfriends".ho, and indeed, ho), they're gifted with a very drunken crowd who would have the time of their lives no matter how shit they played. And
in fairness, they're not at their best, as jet lag threatens to make the set collapse in on itself. Although they do have three genuine pop classics in 'Gainesville Rock City', 'Help Save The Youth Of America From Exploding' and the legendary 'All My Best Friends Are Metalheads'. The new songs don't sound bad either.
The trouble is, they just aren't ska in any conceivable way, although they think they are. It's college-rock punk-pop with the odd offbeat guitar part and some trumpets. And in all fairness, they're barely punk, rendering the term 'ska-punk' somewhat anomalous. What they are is a pop group, and a damn entertaining one at that, as the beams radiating from every fourteen year-old present will tell you. Looking round, I realise that in a couple of years, these kids are going to move on to emo or hardcore, and deny ever having had an interest in this kind of thing. I pity them. It may not be credible or particularly innovative (despite the genre's huge potential), but it is happy, fun pop music, and for that at least, Less Than Jake should be applauded.
