by Katie Whitman
With the call “I’m a big kid now!”, Pimpbot graduated from Huggies pull-ups to full-on Spiderman underoos at their Five Year Anniversary Party on March 10th, 2006. Linus and Missing Dave joined them on the playground for a couple of games of tag – “You’re it! Now drink the celebratory Jaeger Bomb.”
Linus was the first to entertain the merry crowd. Happy alternative rock spouted forth as they stood on stage with an air of unaffected cool. The singer’s voice has that quality of so many alternative rock singers that have come before – not too smooth, not too strident, slightly jaded but taking it all in stride. Their songs tended to consist of catchy melodic hooks with heavier rock fills and played with polished musicianship. Definitely music to bop to. They reminded me of Phantom Planet, Weezer, and a cheerful version of The Strokes without all the processing.
Missing Dave followed Linus, climbing onto the stage in a wave of jokes and confusion and comparisons of their handmade Pimpbot ties. Lead singer, Daena, wore a belt buckle that actually scrolled the message “Happy Birthday Pimpbot” on red LEDs. Missing Dave was great as usual - their energy amped up even higher than the other shows I’ve attended.
Their set that night consisted of lots of happy rock originals and covers. Musically, Missing Dave falls squat in the middle of rock territory, though they often venture in the direction of metal or pop. I always enjoy the creativity of lead guitarist Keith’s solos, filled with fast moving finger picking, delicate harmonics, creative uses of various pedals (especially the one generating the “wa wa” sound), and just rocking out. One reason Missing Dave is great is because they have been together for six years. Their performance is musically very tight and their stage presence is dynamic with lots of interaction between the band members. They ended their set by serenading Pimpbot with an MD rendition of Journey’s “Faithfully”.
The band of the hour, Pimpbot, finished off the night with vast amounts of happiness, energy, crowd interaction, stage diving, worshipping of coconuts, shirtlessness, pantsing, and sweat. Pimpbot is a band about rock and brass and showmanship. Pimpbot always makes an entrance, whether it be a grandiose introduction by Malenko or walking onto the stage in darkness and fog, ushered forth by a Dr. Who-esque audio track. Fernando the Love Machine fronts the band, making wacky expressions while singing and goading the audience until the dance floor is filled.
If you were to imagine a musical fusion between rock, ska, reggae, hip-hop, metal, and stand-up comedy, you would get Pimpbot. As far as I can tell, they play only originals. I recognized a number of songs from their CD, Vertical Lobster: 40 Patrol – a heavy song overlaid with rock-rap. Fat Boy – “You can never kill a fat boy. It’s mental not physical.” Nuff said. And Ragamuffin – an epic about orgasmically delicious "space" muffins.
For the grand finale, Pimpbot called all the bands in the house on stage to sing the last song. MD, Linus, Black Square, MVA, The Crud, and probably others that I lost amidst the pandemonium finished off Pimpbot’s 5th Anniversary with a merrily raucous bang.
People in the audience who took my little notebook from me wrote:
“The crowd seemed into it. The music was great & they played some fucking good music.”
“Without music life would suck, but right now life is fucking great.”
“You may lose, you may win, but you will never be here again! – Eagles”
