Hello Rockview Take On Me

John just sent this article my way…

“Reel Big Fish have announced a tour, but have only revealed that their tourmates rhyme with “Shmess than Shmake.” Some astute readers have noted that this probably – but not definitely – refers to Less Than Jake. Other contenders include, Stress Span Snake, or perhaps Mess Man Make. Dates for the upcoming tour are expected shortly.” [punknews.org]

Back in 1998 I was a huge fan of two bands a) Matthew Good Band b) Less Than Jake. I must admit this isn’t my first website as I had a fan site (as was the style at the time) for the latter.

Best Venue in Boston

The site for Less Than Jake featured discography, a sample mp3, and photos from their concerts in Vancouver, which I attended. Complete with scrolling marquee headers (as was the style at the time) the url was something extremely long like ‘members.home.com/ beckbeck9/index.html’. I created it using Netscape when we had this ‘new’ technology called cable internet offered by Rogers. It was pretty fun to create and maintain but when I moved out at 19, and Rogers Wave changed to Rogers @ Home and then Shaw, everything was lost. I continued to follow the band although the most recent album of their that I own is Anthem, so I’m a little behind and out of touch.

Another punk-ska band that is near and dear to my heart, is Reel Big Fish. I’ve seen them several times in concert (oh Warped Tour, you were so good to my 16 year old self) but the most memorable has got to be Boston in 2003 at Avalon.

One of the opening bands was supposed to be Gob, local Surrey/Delta boys who hit it big (for a short period of time) in the Canadian music scene and infiltrated some of the USA. They never did show. It was an interesting time, and only my second concert that I’ve attended alone. The first was during a Mighty Mighty Bosstones home stand, in the same club, same year. Going to concerts alone is fun, except when it’s in a drinking venue (21+) and it’s an all ages show. You have to walk around with an arm-band on if you’re of age so they know who can be served liquor. This just made me feel really old amongst the college crowd. At any rate, RBF comes on stage, blows our faces off with all their best tunes then they went a little nutty. They played “Beer” again, then they played “Take on Me” cover again, then “Beer“… then “Take on Me“. I think by the end of the night I heard each song about 6 times. They laughed, counted on their fingers with each repetition, and they just kept going – getting even more drunk and silly. It was a memorable night and one of the most ‘interesting’ concert experiences I’ve ever had.

During a time in my life that should have been just that – the time of my life – living in Boston was rather rough. New city, state, country, job and not one familiar face around for thousands of miles. I often look back and regret not doing a lot of things. Not going to more shows, blogging at that time instead of when I got back, and not taking enough pictures. But when I do reminisce there are a whole lot of great memories like this that I definitely do not regret and I supposed they make for half-decent blog posts now.