LIVE PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
Everyone Loves a Little Cake
Matt Jameson
I just cant get enough of this band! Cake, one again, has thoroughly convinced me that they are in fact the masters of feel good summer music. Armed with two bottles of red wine, and reserved seating tickets I made my way through the crowd and took my seat. Having been a long-standing fan of Cake, I was completely amazed when I heard they were touring through the tiny town of Jacksonville Oregon. My excitement was only increased by the fact that I was literally seated thirty feet from the stage.
Although I have been a major fan of their music, I never really looked into the band much and thus was not even sure of how many members there were. With the scathing trumpet solos, astoundingly simple and catchy keyboards and unusual sound effects I assumed that Cake must have been at least a five-man band. To my surprise, the stage was set up for only four. Needless to say I was intrigued by how only four musicians could create such a fully accompanied sound.
In my opinion there are three kinds of typical live musical performances: the deeply moving concert experience, the amazing action packed live performance, and the Tom Petty experience. The first two being self-explanatory are most typical of live music. The third, or Tom Petty experience as I call it – is defined as a performance in which the musician literally stands there and performs. There are no dance numbers, acrobatic stage dives, photo-ready guitar stances or any other events other than a band who just stands and plays. I coined this term after watching a Tom Petty concert on television in which he repeatedly earned standing ovations after every song, without doing anything other than standing in place. It has to be pretty damn-good music in order to move a crowd in such a way.
Cake was definitely a Tom Petty experience, in fact the only time I remember the singer even moving - was to switch guitars. Yet despite the lack of performance action, Cake stood and delivered three hours of solid and technically perfect music. I only make reference to the Tom Petty experience because Ive attended almost 15 shows at this venue to date, and Cake has been the only band to ever invoke a standing audience for the entire show. Half of this concert venues space is seated, yet not a single person ever sat down as far as I could tell. It was amazing.
Much like Dashboard Confessional, Cake fans know every word of every song and take the liberty of singing along through the show. Annoying? Actually no, in fact many of Cakes songs involve background singers, which of course were not present during this tour. Without so much as even a visual cue, Cake never had to ask the audience to sing along. In fact they took advantage of the audiences willingness to sing along and incorporated it right into the performance itself.
As a fan, and a follower of their music, this show not only gave me exactly what I was looking for but also caught me completely by surprise. Im still amazed at how large their sound is considering its a four-piece band. All in all it was one of the better shows Ive seen in the past 5 years. If you havent ever heard Cake, check out a few of their samples at www.amazon.com. In all of my life I have met very few people who didnt like their music after giving it a quick listen. Check it out for yourself, and you just might find yourself at their next live show.
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