On Having One's CAKE & Eating It.

You bastard hack. My, oh my, but that's a bad title. Lazy. Like you've been waiting for an opportunity to use it…

“But it really happened!”

Well, nearly happened. 

The charismatic John McCrea is explaining how this ‘evening’ is going to work as the band ready to ease themselves into the 'INTERMISSION'.

"'INTER-MISSION'. It's such an adult thing to do. We take our time, savour the first half, take a short break and reconvene with renewed vigour."

"YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT!" - it occurs to me to say at that moment…

But I stop short of shouting it. Maybe it's my internal critic? More likely the prohibitive bar prices in this newly refurbished Ritz (lowest priced pint £3.90), which are a far cry from my free pint of Hoffmeister and £1 bottles of beer when I came here as a teen in the 90s for Monday'sfamed 'Alternative Night'. We all complained about how shit it was. We all returned the next week to say the same.

Though at some point, I obviously stopped before the night did, as I've not been back here since before I got into CAKE, which was admittedly pretty late. I used to get here early, before 10pm in order to quaff the gratis Hoff and boost my confidence in pursuance of the girls. Once sufficiently emboldened with additional Pils, I'd sit in a corner looking miserable.

You know, really putting out 'the vibe'.

I find my corners of choice have been walled-off when entering The Ritz for the first time in 11 years. Though it still has the majority of its former glory in situ. The balconies, bars on either side and, contrary to popular belief the fabled dancefloor which remains as bouncy as when my teenage feet in dervish Converse scuffed it-up in the '90s (My assumption as to the proliferation of this bit of misinformation is first-timers attending this resurrected Ritz and finding an actual dancefloor rather than the trampoline they were presumably expecting.)

I got into CAKE with their 'Comfort Eagle' album of 2001, immediately taken by the deadpan hilarity arising out of the absurd self-reverence of the arrogant, album-opening 'Opera Singer', the Commissioning of a Symphony in ‘C’ by an Austrian Nobleman, or ‘ClassicalGas’s Evil Twin, ‘ArcoArena’ which sounds like the kick-ass opening of an Educational programme from the late 70s/early 80s they made you watch at school, from which the theme was your only enduring impression. CAKE needn’t kick the shit out of you, opting instead for funky bass, the odd whip-cracking “H’YA!” underscored by Mariachi brass. 

In the live environment, as with his recorded delivery McCrea takes a stepping stones ‘cross the stream approach, seeming reluctant to land his vocals on the spots you’re willing him to, instead letting the music almost pass him-by before casually relinquishing his grip on the lyrics. Similarly tonight’s setlist, being the ‘Evening With’ that it is, plays it safe refusing to abandon the sure-footed retreads of old favourites - after the hilarious and agonizingly drawn-out ‘WAR’ theme from Rocky IV, CAKE finally sidle on and launch into Willie Nelson’s ‘Sad Songs & Waltzes’, McCrea weaves in and out of the stage’s placement-indicating ‘painted tape’ (careful to avoid an incongruously planted sapling sat at the front of the stage), throwing his white gloves into the crowd as he kicks the show off proper with ‘Opera Singer’ before the band hand over co-writer credit of their ad hoc setlist to the temperature of the room. Before the break McCrea divides the crowd into two sides to provide backing vocal duties for new album’s ‘Sick of You’, even going so far as to supply each side with ‘their motivation’ as we sing the freedom decree: “I-I-I-I’m gonna fly away” to each other’s respective oppression. While probably an audience participation skit fine-tuned over months of this over a year-old tour’s is tonight given a special significance after today’s ‘Occupy Wall Street’ ejection from Zucotti Park.

Which leads us into the break (which is where we came-in).

In their own divisive show of oppression, the Ritz bouncers funnel those of us wishing to leave for piss or cig respectively, out of two dedicated doors. Us smokers are subjected to a negative nightclub-entry ‘one-in, one-out’ scenario – corralled and packed like a fresh 20 pack behind the foil of the metallic barriers on the pavement outside, meaning we miss the resumption.

Tonight’s second slice of CAKE…Come on, I’m not really going to do that, give me some credit!

“But you did! You’re saying you’re not going to lapse into cliché, BUT YOU ALREADY DID IT!”

YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT!

While the first half was given over to indulgence of their most recent record, the second half is peppered more heavily with firm favourites, which paradoxically proves far less entertaining than the midpoint when McCrea gives away the tree to whoever can correctly identify it (Answer at bottom of page*) under the proviso that the recipient agrees to replant the tree in a place it is likely to remain in perpetuity, and photographic evidence of its progress regularly sent in to a designated page on their official website.

“H’YA!”

ǝǝɹʇ ɯnld ɐ :ɹǝʍsuɐ*

Photos by Kitty Saros