Kansas City Blog

The overall show was the fourth annual Jayrock benefit, a fundraiser and rock-n-roll party for the JayDoc free health care clinic. The Jayrock tradition has been steadily growing. Two years ago, it was at the Record Bar with headliner White Whale. The year after that, people packed out the Mission Theatre for Fourth of July and Dead Girls Ruin Everything. And this year, about 1,000 people came to see the bands last night -- not a sellout crowd, but more than respectable. At this rate, Jayrock will be at Sprint Center in four years. And probably with local bands there, too. JayDoc, you rock.

When I arrived around 8:20, the Republic Tigers were already a couple of songs into their set. Sadly, I had missed the uncelebrated opening "med-school band" Harry Truemen. I heard they were bad, but I definitely like their name. I also like the idea of a med-school band. Young doctors need their artistic outlets, too. In fact, I'll book Harry Truemen for my next birthday party. They can play "Still Loving You" by the Scorpions and then check me for STDs.

Scott Spychalski

The Tigers put on a solid set. They've become pretty much a well-oiled machine, as a band would need to be in order to open for Travis. Sincere thanks got to the Republic Tigers for throwing in two genius covers to give a little something new to people already very very familiar with their songs. The covers were "Elenore" by the Turtles and motherfuckin' "Heart of Glass" by Blondie. When they kicked into that song, and Kenn Jankowski broke into his spot-on vocal mimickry of Debbie Harry, and the mirror ball lit up, it was probably the most blissful I've felt at a concert so far this year. The people in the crowd barely moved throughout the Tigers' show (senses dulled, no doubt, from staying in too much this winter and reading blogs), but I looked around during "Heart of Glass" and saw a lot of them smiling. How can you not?

And then, a lot of them began leaving. The folks who remained, however, to see Ultimate Fakebook, were way pumped. As Queen's Flash Gordon theme played over the PA and the members of the band entered one by one, fans pressed in close and greeted the Fakebookers like heroes. Behind the drummer, a sign as tall as a man made of giant blocky letters spelling UFB flashed and blazed during the show. In the middle of the first or second song, a buxom, 30-something woman jumped up on center stage and shouted out parts of the verse. The band played for over an hour, coming out for an encore even after they'd already raised the bar to a new level by shooting clouds of stage fog and confetti into the air and inviting about 50 people up on stage to dance.

UFB's heyday was before my time in Kansas City. I was still in high school down in Texas when the group was enjoying the success of regional hits like "Tell Me What You Want" and "Little Apple Girl" and ... uh insert UFB song names here. I polled some friends at the show for thoughts on the band. Joshua from Popwreckoning.com -- whom, contrary to reports, I did not physically assault (LOLZ) -- characterized the band as "Weezer before there was Weezer." Another chum said they were "powerpop with a little hair metal thrown in," indicating the band liked to engage in a healthy amount of rock-star self-mockery.

Scott Spychalski

These assessments proved accurate when McShane and co. got going. Though McShane has been in L.A. working on movies for five years, he fell back into his frontman role like riding a bike: his knees thrust inward and guitar pointed at the ceiling, his lip curled and head jerking away from the mic between lyrics. He was the Nerd Messiah Incarnate. The atmosphere at the Uptown took on a strangely nostalgic-for-high-school feeling. On one visit to the bathroom, I overheard a guy sing aloud the lyric "my old math teacher..." and then stop, I guess, when he realized he was singing in the men's room. I don't know if it was a UFB lyric or what, but that notion of writing a song that talks about a former math teacher -- that seems to sum up a good portion of the Fakebook's book. These are songs for anyone who spent their teenage years torn between a desire for the opposite sex and a desire to full-on freak over things like Star Wars and comic books -- things that are so agonizingly appealing to one's inner, younger self but are basically wolfsbane when it comes to attracting a mate. While I totally identify with that, UFB's sound, which is very rooted in hyper, whiny '90s punk-pop, put me off a bit. But the crowd was loving it, despite -- or because of -- it being past their bedtime, in more ways that one.

Scott Spychalski