REVIEWS 
REVIEWS 
Reel Big Fish, Bantha Fodder, Wiseacre - The Arena, Brisbane - April 3 1999
Reel Big Fish - Offshore Festival, Torquay, Victoria - April 1999
The queues outside The Arena were huge, especially the all-ages one, but luckily I knew some people about half way up, so I didn't have to wait so long. The all-ages crowd were all really pissed off when they found out they were stuck upstairs all night, and there was a note being passed around telling everyone to charge down the stairs as soon as Wiseacre started, cause there was only 1 security guard on each set of stairs. It never happened though. But there were still lots of people skanking around - it felt like the floor was going to fall through. Wiseacre were up first - they were their usual awesome selves - I've never seen Jimmy play the trombone before though - he played it instead of the trumpet in a few songs. Tim (guitar) is probably the only person I've seen who doesn't look like a complete fool wearing those socks up to the knees that you fold over at the top - he actually looks quite cute. I can't think of much about Wiseacre really, because I spent most of the set watching them from the front of the stage, but about 15 metres away, until I moved down to the side, where I was really close, but only had a side view. They didn't play Banana though (I love that song), but they did do their version of Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport - it doesn't really sound anything like the original.
Bantha Fodder were next, complete with a drummer on crutches. I think he sprained his ankle, but I'm not sure how. They came onto the stage with the Star Wars theme song playing, which was pretty cool, and Angus was hopping along waving both crutches in the air. They played with their usual energy and antics, jumping around the stage and everything. Paul got right into it, but had a few problems - the microphone on the speaker kept falling over, he tripped on the guitar lead, broke a string.... he was getting really pissed off - just threw the guitar on the floor when he broke the string, and was taking out his energy by kicking the beer cans being thrown on stage. I don't know if everybody noticed that though, it's just that I was looking down from the side of the stage, and he was closest to me. Nothing much more to say, except they rocked like buggery, but I suppose they always do.
After Bantha Fodder's second song, I was told by some woman that if I didn't put the camera away, she'd have to confiscate it. I still don't know why, and everyone else was taking photos anyway, so I brought it out again when Reel Big Fish played.
Reel Big Fish came on, and there was so much noise I couldn't hear what they were saying. There were also lots of little annoying girls around me, calling out to a particular band member, and when he didn't look around and acknowledge them, they'd call him a snob. I felt like smashing them in the head, but I restrained myself. They also got really excited when they waved in our general direction, and kept talking about how he might wave to them again. The first song was Sell Out, which really pleased the crowd. The pit downstairs was packed, and surprisingly there were also tons of people dancing upstairs, and they knew how to skank! There were a few who were moshing, and didn't know what ska was, but not as many as I thought there would be.
All the guys have so much energy on stage - they were all dancing around, except the bass player, who just stood there, and the drummer of course. Scott did this bit which he called Uncle Scott's Story Time - he told this story to some cool backing music about a guy and girl, how it started to go wrong, she left him for a girl... which led into She Has A Girlfriend Now - that was pretty cool. When they played The Kids Don't Like It they got all the under-18s upstairs to sing "the kids don't like it" and all the over-18s downstairs sang "no, no!". They also had a word of the night - I didn't quite get the point of that, but Scott came up with the word "terrarium" and got the crowd to yell it a few times. They played for about 45 minutes I think, then left the stage, but it was obvious they were going to come back on cause all the equipment was still set up, and the guitar was sitting there ready to be picked up again.
After a while of the crowd chanting "Reel Big Fish" (mainly the all-ages crowd) they came back on. They played a Duran Duran cover, which Scott played the guitar for, antoher song which I can't remember, and finished with Take On Me, a real crowd pleaser. When they came back on, some kids near me managed to get the singer to come over (complete with towel wrapped around his head) and gave him one of those bright orange reflective Queensland Rail vests, and he wore it for them. I don't know exactly why they wanted that, but it made them happy - they wouldn't stop screaming and saying "I can't believe he's wearing it" - I wanted to smash them in the head again, cause I couldn't hear what the band was saying. The screaming was even louder when he took his shirt off so he could put the vest on. Right near the end, a couple of my friends decided to jump down over the railing, onto the stage and dive into the crowd - they were caught by security and dragged back upstairs, but at least they weren't kicked out. The Fish played for about an hour in total.
After they'd finished, I went to buy a Bantha Fodder sticker (it was all I could really afford) - it cost $1, I gave them a $10 note and got $14 change - woo hoo!
Despite being extremely annoyed about the fact that I was stuck upstairs all night long, to try really hard to get a place where I could see the bands, it was still a fucking fantastic gig.
Reel Big Fish had a hard (although vastly different) act to follow at Offshore, since they were playing straight after Ben Harper who was mind-blowingly good. The area was packed with about 20,000 people, a lot of whom cleared out after Ben Harper, which was probably a good thing, as the only people who stuck around were real fans, or people who were interested in seeing the band play, and there was plenty of room to skank.
They started out with "Sell Out", which got the crowd going really quickly. I was pleased to see that almost everyone knew how to skank, but there were still a lot of people standing still just watching - I don't know how they could NOT skank, but that's just my opinion.
The seemingly limitless energy of the band amazed me, and it was so infectious that the energy rubbed off on the crowd as well. All the songs were well received, especially the ones where Scott led into them with a little story. He did "Scott's story time" to lead into "She Has A Girlfriend Now", and split the Duran Duran Cover (which was brilliant) into two halves by getting the crowd to copy his increasingly hard singing patterns. Amazingly most of the crowd kept up until the end, and we were rewarded with a genuine "Wow, you guys are amazing!".
One of the best songs, crowd participation-wise, was The Kids Don't Like It. Aaron and Scott took half of the crowd each, and one half had to say "The kids don't like it" followed by the other half with "No, no". This provided some of the funniest banter between the band, when Scott and Aaron started insulting each other's halves of the crowd, and then picking on each other's leadership skills!
"Take on Me" was really well received, with the crowd's singing able to be heard above the band for the whole time. This was thanks to the excellent sound system setup - not too loud, not too quiet, but just right!
All in all, it was a fantastic show. I haven't skanked that hard in a long time, and it was even better than I was expecting. I can't wait till they get back here in "September or October or November or December" (direct quote from the band!) so I can go see them again.