Cake's John McCrea and his ever-present vibraslap. (Justin G. Renney / Getty Images file from 2005)
You knew you were in for something different, something typical “Cake,” when vibraslap-happy lead singer John McCrea played two songs and asked the crowd, “Who’s in a real hurry to hear all the music tonight?”
A few at the Sunset Cove Amphitheater cheered.
“Well, go home and get on your computers. ‘Cause this is an evening with Cake.”
And this time, the whole crowd lit up. Because to listen to Cake on your iPod is to envy getting a chance to just hang with them, to hear them mix keyboards and trumpet and that rattlesnake-sounding vibraslap with those white-boy funk bass lines and McCrea’s ironic lyrics uttered half-spoken, half-sung.
Cake plays the kind of music you sing out loud with your friends, out of key, laughing, repeating the chorus back to the stage — and that’s exactly what the faithful fans of the once-college rock band got Friday night. They got to chill with Cake at the perfectly informal setting of Sunset Cove, some standing and dancing, some kicking back on lawn chairs and head-bobbing in a three-quarters full venue serving fried fair food, beer and cocktails.
It’s the kind of band you fully expect to do something like, say, give away a tree they kept on stage the entire show. Yes, a sapling with a funny future. Whoever in the crowd guessed the kind of local tree it was — an impromptu quiz show that McCrea started between two fan-favorite songs, “Sheep Go to Heaven” and “Rock-n-Roll Lifestyle,” calling on only the least-rowdy fans who raised their hands — got to take the tree home with the promise they would periodically take pictures with it and send it to the band so they can post them online. (McCrea never did say what the tree was, but scuttlebutt has it that it was a Gumbo Limbo.)
You can’t say that a band that infuses funk, bluegrass, college rock and country rocked the house. What they did was engage. They tuned in to fans that ranged from teenage girls singing a 15-year-old song with forty-something college sweethearts bouncing in the front row.
So aside from playing new songs from their sixth full-length album, Showroom of Compassion, they also mixed in the hits that make them unmistakably Cake, ramping up to the classic “Never There.”
And by now it should be no surprise they didn’t use a set list. They were just hanging out, talking to each other to see what mood they were in and what song they wanted to play next. In that, the crowd got to peek inside and see how their minds work.
Trumpet player/keyboard maestro Vince DiFiore pounded on the horn which gives Cake that funky, music-made-on-the-fly effect. And Gabe Nelson on the bass guitar earned his paycheck and then some, taking front and center with the thump that gives Cake its distinctive feel.
And when they went off stage, but left their instruments at the ready, the crowd was still hungry for the big hits. And they did not disappoint.
They came back with “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” whose instrumental has become famous again as the theme song for the equally quirky nerd/spy NBC show “Chuck.” And they went out with their first big hit, “The Distance.”
In all, they played for about two-and-a-half hours, and still you walked out wondering where the time went, reluctantly heading for the exits like after an all-night house party with friends that no one wanted to end.
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