We live in an age of ludicrous genre titles. "Crunkcore" may be one of the worst offenders; but, for 3OH!3, there's no better title for their hard-charging white-boy party music. For a show packed with hundreds of conspicuously sober, Hot-Topic adorned teenage kids, last night's show at the Uptown -- called the Too Fast For Love Tour, with Cobra Starship -- was one hell of a party. Best known for their radio hit "Don't Trust Me," the Denver duo has perfected its formula: 3OH!3 has plucked all of the most catchy parts of radio rock and fused them into one guaranteed hit. Each song is a head-bopping hip-hop verse, pop-punk sing-a-long vocals and a rock riff chorus.
3OH!3's set kicked off with two stuffed bobcats on each side of the stage, decked out with green lazer eyes. With a flash of white light, rumbling bass and speaker-busting synth, 3OH!3 laid into their set with raucous intensity. Awkward dance moves and hair buns (yes, Nathaniel Motte sported a bun for a majority of the set, letting his locks loose hair-metal style in the last few songs) didn't make a difference. The band's ironic machismo is underpinned with their laughable (and almost brilliant) lyrics: Tell your boyfriend / if he says he's got beef / that I'm a vegetarian / and I ain't fucking scared of him.
More famous incantations (Do the Helen Keller / and talk with your hips) were shouted with the chanting, deadpan delivery of a Beastie Boys tune. Referencing the band's newest hit, "House Party," Sean Foreman sounded off about a topic 3OH!3 knows well. "First comes pizza parties, then house parties, then...the democratic party? I don't know, I'm not a comedian," said Foreman. He laughed. He then tried to get the Uptown to give him air high-fives. (And low-fives.)
House lights revealed hundreds of fingers in the air, bobbing 3OH!3's signature vagina hand-signs in time with the beat. It was like arriving at a party to find a bathtub full of Natty Light. You're not exactly impressed; but it's still fucking awesome, anyway.
Cobra Starship boasts a handful of radio hits: most recently, the infectious, Gossip-Girl-featuring jam "Good Girls Go Bad." Their sound is a fusion of '80s kitsch, electro-thrash and straight up punk-pop, and when done correctly, it's a fusion that's funny, quasi-ironic and devastatingly successful. When it's not, it's an off-key, warbling version of Fall Out Boy wearing neon and playing a keytar. Unfortunately, this is the Cobra Starship that Kansas City encountered last night.
Cobra Starship's bombastic light show couldn't hide the fact that frontman Gabe Saporta was in sore need of auto-tune on the band's first number, "The City Is At War." The band was pitch perfect, however, and judging from the choruses sang and the rock-on signs flung in the air, the crowd couldn't care less -- that is, until Saporta began talking.
The hyper frontman stalled out the band's flow several times, interrupting the set to indulge his long-winded musings on fame (namely, his own) and to brag about how long Cobra Starship had been touring (three years). During the first of these monologues, he actually picked a fight with a fan down front that was ostensibly flipping Saporta off for failing to shut up. Saporta flew into a fury, calling the kid a "fat fuck" and telling him to go home and masturbate to pictures of his mother.
Normally, this would be awesome. (Example: a drunken Ryan Adams throwing out some brah for requesting "Summer of '69"? Choice.) But in the context of Saporta's coked-out soliloquies that featured dozens of "brothers and sisters" and "fuck you, we're fucking Cobra Starship," it simply sucked. (Other memorable phrases: "We're a gang," "We're a way of life," and the most excellent, "No one gets left behind." Rock. Star.)
The band then gave away a skateboard, and invited a fan up on stage (the lovely Maria, who actually killed her verse, showing up Saporta in her squeaky little-girl voice. Three cheers for local talent, yo). The show went on; the light show jittered and blasted; and, the band did their best to chug along behind Saporta's manic (but slowly warming) vocals. But the damage was done: the mood that 3OH!3 had whipped up had flattened. Party foul, Cobra Starship.
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In my opinion, I thought all the bands were great. Gabe's vocals were just fine. There was a bunch of things that weren't correctly stated. The girl who came on stage was not Maria, it was Mauria (pronounced different from Maria too). And why the hell do you think those things were bobcats? Plus your quotes were all wrong. Last but not least, Cobra Starship was not a party foul, you were. Im just trying to say that Cobra Starship needed a bit more respect...
anyone with sense knows that 3OH!3 is better than Cobra anyway..so why did they go last? haha. a concert is suppose to leave people wanting more...CS should take notes from Nat & Sean. :}
Whoops. Wolves. From my far-away vantage point (the better to hold your Long Island Iced Tea with), they looked as though they had spots.
Those were wolves on the 3oh!3 set not bobcats. Half their lyrics mention wolves and they also said those things were wolves like 20 times on stage last night.
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