It felt as if the Roseland was hosting one of those wholesome, family-friendly Nickelodeon Goo-Fests instead of a rock concert.
An air of feverish excitement filled every corner of the New York City concert Mecca long before the opening act hit the stage as the cavernous club quickly became jammed with what appeared to be a small army of short, hyperactive, constantly moving teen and pre-teen suburban hipsters decked out in brand new Presidents Of The United States Of America T-shirts, big sneakers, baggy jeans and MTV haircuts.
A few paces behind each knot of jabbering, first-time concert goers, three or four sets of slightly-dazed parents put their wallets back into their pockets and watched in wonder as their new-shirt-wearin' hopes for the future vanished into a crowd of pink and green-haired punks, aging hipsters, trendy Gen-Xer's, freshly-shaved Chris Ballew wannabe's, college kids and leather-jacketed metal-heads.
Menthol came on promptly at 7:30 and, try as they might, their loud, glammish, power-rock approximation of Material Issue fell, for the most part, on deaf ears. Moving ant-like across the club floor, the alterna-kids were too busy checking each other out, eluding their parents and making new friends to pay attention to the stage and Menthol left to polite applause after a game 30-minute set.
With one band between them and their heroes, the crowd was more receptive to The Fastback's excellent Go Go's in hyperdrive version of L7 with hooks.
No longer able to contain their Coca Cola-fueled energy, small mosh pits began to form in the audience while pint-sized floaters were politely passed along to an even more polite pit crew. Closing their set with covers of The Raspberries' "Go All The Way" and Sweet's "Set Me Free," the band brought smiles to the faces of parents throughout the club who forgot, for a few minutes, that it was their 10-year-olds out there riding the crowd.
Bouncing in excitement, the future leaders of America jockeyed for a better view during the set change and cheered wildly as the three stringed guitbass and two-stringed basitar they knew so well from MTV were carried on stage.
Riding the screams, basitarist Chris Ballew, drummer Jason Finn and guitbassist Dave Dederer grabbed their instruments and ripped into spirited versions of "Feather Pluckin'" and the MC5's "Kick Out The Jams" that caused an eruption of beer cups, well-behaved mosh pits and happily grinning floaters.
Dodging the occasional love offering (books, magazines, demo tapes, hats, flowers, watches, a urinal cake) thrown to them, the band rocked their fans with favorites from last year's multi-platinum Columbia Records debut ("Boll Weevil," "Dune Buggy," "Back Porch," "Kitty," "Peaches," "Lump," "Body" and "We Are Not Going To Make It") new tunes for an album due out in November ("Bug City," "Big In Vegas," "Mach Five," "Confusion," "Tube Amplifier" and "Twig In The Wind") and twisted covers of "Dueling Banjos," "Video Killed The Radio Star" and The Beatles' "Baby You're A Rich Man."
In an era rife with crime, hunger, homelessness and the very real possibility of, literally, no future; the nonsense lyrics, cartoonish image, curious guitars and Primus-meets-Grand Funk Railroad roar of The Presidents Of The United States Of America makes for great entertainment and a welcome, albeit brief, escape from reality.
