The Phenomenauts, The Epoxies & The Aquabats @ BB Kings 07/01/05

My first time at BB Kings, i like the place, the sound is excellent. I expected it to be alot bigger than it was since they always seem to have big name acts rolling through there. I didnt even ask about the beer prices, but that place was stuffed to the gills with kids dying for the aquabats. Since their show at the knitting factory last year got cut short due to the overwhelming amount of heat, the kids were extra-hungry for a good show, and thats what they got.

The Phenomenauts were really great rockabilly to rile up even the coolest of space-communist cowboys. i only say that because of thier red and black motif, they were lots of fun, the superhero style was carried on throughout the whole evening, it was a big new wave devo style show in its entirity made up of little parts of different stylings and the p-nauts did thier part, i wish i couldve seen more of them, but got there late.



The Epoxies play girl-fronted new wavy pop punk, i wasnt overly impressed with them, but i wouldnt say they were bad, i was kind of just in the aquabat mood and wanted to see them asap. They were definately fun and tried to get the crowd riled up, im just being to hard on them.



Then it was time for the main event and boy was it an event. The aquabats brought thier video screens with them this time and projected some awesome stuff while they played and that included the best intro to a band ever, it was a great introduction to a great band, i keep getting older but it seems the aquabats fans all stay the same age, because it sincerely is for the kids to have the time of thier lives. The bats have dropped thier ska end for the straight up new wave awesomeness. It works without a doubt, but i kind of miss it. They ripped through most of the new album and played a fair amount of the old good stuff (super rad, martian girl, chemical bomb, pizza day) There were some super evil villian attack from the likes of white buffalo, zombie mummy, and a very evil cobra that had a smaller cobra for a hand. The cobra actually defeated the MC bat commander and the only way to get him to come back to life was to sing along to a cover of journeys "dont stop believin" (which was lost on about 75% of the crowd, but heaven for me) When they needed to take long breaks they played commercials on the video screens, one was for thier new pudding dispensing utility belts (chocolate is on the back) the other was for a home wellness kit for kids that came witha vics vaporub thing for your feet and a jar of leeches to suck out the sick blood, they were hilarious. and if that werent enough right before they played pool party, some spanish guy got up and proposed to his girlfriend, make no mistakes, THAT IS LOVE. That was a show to be remembered, but most every bats show is, if it all werent enough i found a cadet helmet on the ground as every one was leaving, some poor cadets loss, but my super awesome gain!