Ah, that feeling of walking into a gig “blind”. I had no idea who tonight’s support were and the only Wheatus song I know is “that one”, but I had been told they were entertaining. A little hiccup at the box office regarding the guest list meant that I ended up talking to Zuz, one of our writers, who was there to review for another publication! I’ll find it once it’d published and link it here so you can see two people’s views of the show.
Opener Thomas Nicholas (sans band) wss on stage by the time we got in, and in full flow. The venue was fairly rammed already, heading for the capacity sell-out that it was, and he entertained with his one-man acoustic set. The words “…while were filming American Pie” caught my ear and a quick Google had me catching up with what I assume most everyone in the Studio already knew. Nicholas played Kevin in the American Pie series and he milks this in the best possible way throughout his set.
He namechecks songs which were on various AP soundtracks, talks about the cast as friends and has based a lot of his songs on American Pie lore… but none of it comes across as forced or annoying, mainly as he’s so damn likeable. His own songs are more than decent, and the links to the films are great as they encourage you to listen to the lyrics and get the in-jokes. Mixed amongst a couple of covers (like Blink-182’s “All The Small Things” and Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal”) are “Stifler’s Mom” (if I told you she “has got it going on”, you can probably guess the rest) and a brilliant American Pie reworking of Bowling For Soup’s “1985” entitled “1999”. Full marks to the Glasgow crowd for absolutely nailing the “Woo hoo hoo!” opening!
The BFS link is reinforced by me realising that the recent track that in my head had come from Jaret Reddick, “We’re Gonna Be OK” was actually from Thomas Nicholas Band with Jaret guesting and co-writing. A great song which is right on brand for Jaret’s positive stand on mental health, it did nothing but further impress me with Nicholas’ writing and performance. Absolutely someone I’ll be keeping an eye out for on future tours!
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With only a short break, Wheatus rammed themselves onto the not-as-small-as-you’d think stage. After wiggling my head back and forth to see around the annoying pillar in the middle of the dance floor, I counted a full-on nine performers on stage (ten at one point). This included three backing singers, two drummers and one ex-member who had rejoined for this tour (and was also playing predominantly percussion). Unbeknownst to me, Wheatus aren’t a band – they’re an orchestra.
They also love playing live. I mean I noticed it from near the rear of the hall, but our photographer Sean who was right at the front in Leicester told me “I don’t think I’ve seen many bands have as much fun as Wheatus on stage”. This fun extended over 24 tracks, some of which were partials and / or covers, but there was so much chatter between songs as well. Credit to main man Brendan Brown who was wrapping fistfuls of toilet roll around his hand before blowing his nose throughout… Obviously not a well man, but it didn’t affect his performance.
With this being the 25th anniversary of their self-titled debut, we knew we were going to get every song. However, we didn’t know the order. Opening with a cover of The Darkness’ “Growing On Me” before essentially taking requests for the rest of the show. In amongst the debut album we also got “BMX Bandits”, “Chan’s The Man”, “Break It Don’t Buy It” and a bunch more including covers from Green Day and The Temptations.
For someone not familiar with the music, the second half of the set got a little flat as this was where they focused on the majority of their own material, but one look at the vast majority of the crowd put my very much into the minority. Everyone knew the words and cheered the introduction of every song.
Of course, we were waiting for “that” well known number. And we actually got it twice! As it was “almost December”, an un-rehearsed and incomplete rendition of “Christmas Dirtbag” snuck into the set towards the end, but there were no surprises that the full-fledged, non-diet version of “Teenage Dirtbag” rang out as the final song of the show.
It was great to tick one of those boxes, seeing such a well known song being played live by the original artist, and thankfully it was part of a very enjoyable show. I’m sure these guys will own the stage in London before Bowling For Soup’s largest headliner to date on the 13th (which Ross is covering as it’s the weekend my dissertation is due, boo). Oh, and if you want to shave Brandan’s head on that very stage during BFS’s set, then enter the raffle for a couple of tickets in aid of Uprawr Mental Health Foundation!
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Photos by Sean Larkin Photography
