Smoosh & The Pipettes at Black Cat 6/2

Introduction (they've used that same bit before previous shows)
Don't Forget Me
Because It's Not Love (But It's Still a Feeling)
Why Did You Stay
Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me
Your Love for Me
It Hurts To See You Dance So Well
Tell Me What You Want
Baby Don't Leave Me
Really That Bad
The Burning Ambition of Early Diuretics
True Love Waits Patiently for a Miracle
I Love You
Guess Who Ran off with the Milkman?
By My Side
Judy
One Night Stand
Dirty Mind
Pull Shapes
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ABC
We Are the Pipettes

So no Simon Says, Sex, Magician Man, Kitchen Sink, KFC, or A Winter's Sky. Yes, and no I Like a Boy in Uniform (School Uniform), quite possibly their most catchy song, but they have said that they're trying to move to a more mature sound. Or something. Something to get away from playing that song. Which is of course a damn shame. All the songs they did play were great though. And The Burning Ambition of Early Diuretics just goes to show that their sense of humor is awesome for smart people.

Anyway, Monster Bobby was just him, a guitar, and a somewhat hated programmed keyboardy thingy. I am not that familiar with it, but it used disks to play preprogrammed beats. As the man sort of behind the goofy Pipettes, his songs were bizarre and hilarious, and he was quite funny as well, in that British way that I like to think of myself as. He started with Let's Check into a Hospital Together and then into The Closest Experience to That of Being with You Is the Experience of Taking Drugs which are the only songs I would have known before the show. He did also play 3 Days, 14 Hours, I Am a Pedestrian, and 23 Seconds, which were either funny or good or both, and also from the new album. He was quite fun, and I certainly will try to find more of his music. And he finished with a song called My Band, which was full of excuses by various band members for not showing up at a practice, but it ends up with a lot of ridiculous instruments. And is funny. And he ended the show by cursing his keyboardy thingy. Which caused the idiot next to me to laugh his annoying donkey laugh (he had been laughing many times before) and say, "He called his keyboard a cunt!" Wow, thanks, I didn't hear him scream that at his keyboard. You're a douche.

Smoosh were a lot of fun as well. I ended up with a lot of cash after buying tickets for a bunch of people (I just got them and allowed other people to figure out who was actually going to use them). So I ended up buying The Pipettes EP (all good songs, but I knew that already), and then I walked back to my friends and then was talked into buying the two Smoosh albums, which I did from the drummer, Chloe, who seemed a little surprised. I considered buying a shirt, but I figured I had spent enough. They brought along their younger sister Maia to play bass. Asya's vocals were not quite as strong in the mix as I would have wanted, but they were quite competent, and Chloe was bopping her head and clearly enjoying the show immensely. And Find a Way is just such a great song that even if the rest of the set wasn't as good as it was, they would have been worth seeing for it. There's just something about a drop out early in the song that I have to enjoy. And they were good beyond just their collective age being around mine. Well, if you just count Asya and Chloe.

There wasn't much of a lull between Monster Bobby and Smoosh, but there was quite a long one before The Pipettes. Over half an hour, which meant that I was getting really antsy. But there was the audio system, which played Killer Queen (Guitar Hero is good for some things, apparently), Kung Fu Fighting (I got that based on the first couple notes as well), and Sweet Caroline, which had pretty much the entire crowd singing along. Which... um... included me. Damnit, it's a song that requires singing along.

Finally the Pipettes came out, after the little intro bit, running out to a pretty full stage (all the male members of The Pipettes, aka The Cassettes), and launching directly into Don't Forget Me (something like this). I really enjoyed the entire set, from a musical standpoint, and also from an aesthetic standpoint. Synchronized dancing to awesome music makes everything better, and synchronized dancing to awesome music from three very attractive women is just immense fun, and anyone who says they suck just is an idiot. There were quite a few discussions about which one was the most attractive. I came down on the Rosay side, although I bet RiotBecki would be the most entertaining from a conversational standpoint, with her dissertation on porn and her goofy faces during the show. And Gwenno is clearly the most "traditionally" attractive. I think it was one of the best shows I've been to in a long time. And it was all over in just under an hour. Short songs are awesome.

Anyway, I wanted to complain about the group of people near me (sometimes far too near me). If you know me, I am not entirely comfortable actually coming in contact with people I know, and certainly not people I don't. There was a hippy girl along with a couple girls in polka dots near me for the beginning of the set who were all screaming about how all men are evil and that they needed to sing more songs about evil boyfriends. I'd normally complain on behalf of all nice guys out there, but screw them. The hippy girl had a shoulder bag and it kept hitting me because she was thrashing around like a crazy person. After a while, a couple of guys started yelling at them about how they'd come from very far away to see the show, and so they were shouting for a while, but I stopped paying attention because somehow these two very tall men in handmade Pull Shapes (in red sparkly lettering) had moved in front of me. Too close in front of me. In my attempt to keep the setlist and, you know, clap, I ended up touching him almost every time I moved more than a couple inches forward. I couldn't move that far back either. During Pull Shapes, I got both kicked in the shin and had the entire stage blocked out because he was both jumping and waving his hands in the air. I can understand both the jumping and waving, but he had been bumping into me and then I'd poke him with my Prozac pen (no irony there) or elbow him and he'd apologize, but he just didn't seem to understand that he had been a tremendous ass in moving in front of someone smaller than him in a place that wasn't nearly large enough for his body. Especially if he was going to flail around. Like the spazz he was. So I deem him the biggest douche of the show.