Icing on the Cake
On Thursday night, I caught the final show of the Unlimited Sunshine Tour, which was headlined by Cake, the quirky, understated, and often brilliant alt-rock band that blends intelligent songwriting, solid-but-not-flashy musicianship, and an eclectic mix of stylistic influences. The show, at New York’s new Terminal 5 venue, also featured four other acts: Agent Ribbons, Oakley Hall, King City, and Brazilian Girls ; which were whisked on and off stage in a very efficient manner to keep things moving with virtually no intermissions (often while one band played on one side of the stage, roadies were furiously taking down or setting up on the other).
By the time Cake–which was promoting it’s recently released CD, B-Sides and Rarities (Upbeat, 2007)–hit the stage at a little after 10:00 PM (the show started at 7:30), the place was packed with the band’s loyal followers, who sang along with virtually every song. McCrea complained of having limited vocal range due to a cold, but Cake was still able to crank out almost an hour and a half of their material. The band’s set drew selections from most of their 6-album catalog (with the exception of their most recent studio CD, Pressure Chief), and included many of their most well-known tunes including their two most popular tunes, “Short-Skirt Long Jacket,” and “The Distance,” but also covering more obscure selections such as their cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” the Kenny Rogers hit “Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love to Town), as well as their own “Comfort Eagle,” and “Guitar,” among many others.
Cake’s blends a solid rock rhythm section, Xan McCurdy’s tasteful guitar playing, McCrea’s acoustic guitar (he plays a small, parlor-sized acoustic through a little amp on stage, getting a thin and intentionally cheesy sound) and Vince DiFiore’s trumpet and synth parts. The trumpet is a key to Cake’s original sound, providing many of the riffs for the songs, and acting as counterpoint to McCrea’s vocals. DiFiore’s understated synth playing mainly sticks to single-note, analog-sounding lines (Fiore was playing what appeared to be a Yamaha S30 keyboard, but I couldn’t tell what was MIDIed to it).
McCrea showed his uncanny ability to get the audience involved in sing-along and clapping segments (he sometimes instructs one side of the club to try to sing louder than the other). Typical of the band’s quirky humor, gave away several young trees near the end of the show, instructing the winners that they must take pictures of themselves with the trees once planted and send them to Cake’s Web site).
Brazilian Girls, which played directly before Cake, featured the sultry vocals of Sabina Sciubba, and a lot of very catchy synth-based pop. San Francisco’s King City provided two short sets of catchy Latin-tinged acoustic instrumental music.
