The Protomen

I mentioned The Protomen back in 2008, but due to tour complications, a temporary leave of absence from my city and a dislike for festivals, I never got a chance to see them live until recently. While it is no strange occurrence to have a band put out a concept album, it is fairly rare to see a concept band. The Protomen are one such band. Their story is based on the Mega Man video games, but the theme has a much more dystopian feel than that of an 8-bit adventure. Think 1984 meets video games meets rock opera, with synthesizers. They also do really good covers of songs from the 70's and 80's; a particularly good one is “No Easy Way Out” from Rocky IV. You know, where Ivan Drago kills Apollo in the ring, and Rocky tries to deal with it by driving his Ferrari really fast – that song. The Protomen are a good mix of theatrics and musical skill.

They performed at a place called Super Happy Fun Land, which is quite an interesting place. Before seeing Protomen, I had never been to that particular venue. I have heard it described as sort of a hippie commune that caters to the strange - a fairly accurate summation. Instead of a marquee, they simply spray paint the band dates on the outside of the building, and when it fills, they paint over it and start again. The walls of the inside had many paintings and graffiti art, some of which reminded me of The Gorillaz cartoon art. The back of the one large room had what appeared to be antiquated theater seating, and the sides had numerous chairs and couches, all covered with many blankets and afghans. The rest of the place consisted of many stuffed animals, antique toys, and various nick-nacks. To add to the bizarre nature of the place, they had a donation only “bar,” which was simply a fridge filled with beer, and run by a girl who was described to me as “mentally checked out.” She wore large head phones that played no music, and she seemed to only mouth words instead of actually speaking them. It is the best representation of a post apocalyptic hideout I have ever seen. No air conditioning either, which sort of added to the atmosphere of the place.

The opening acts consisted of a band called Urizen, which I can only describe as Gwar meets video game music. The finale of their set consisted of a robot fighting a one eyed monster. Their set had a lot of references that I did not get, but I was only a passive gamer; I never got involved in the culture of it. After them, there was a band, if you can call it that, by the name of Okeydokey – I don't know this for certain; the tour info had this name. There is apparently a way you can modify a gameboy to where you can alter music with it, and that was pretty much the act. To be honest, I don't like laptop (or even gameboy) Djs, so I went outside for his set. In my mind, one person does not a band make.

When The Protomen finally went on, the crowd went nuts. All of the band members were in costume; some in face paint, others in helmets. To be honest, the sound could have been better, but it's better than I expected from the place. The band more than made up for the venue's deficiencies with their delivery. The crowd was pretty interesting and diverse. From nerds to kids to the hardcore, The Protomen seem to have a far reaching appeal. One such hardcore gentleman took off his shirt as soon as the band went on, donning many a tattoo, two of which were angel wings, one of which read “sinner” and the other “saint.” If ever the mosh pit was not rowdy enough, he would kick it up a notch. Another young lady, who was probably about a week over 21, could not handle her alcohol. After the very first song, her beer decided that it did not agree with her, and she threw up on one of my friend's shoe, and the other's arm. After a short trip to the restroom and a follow-up trip to the bar, she was back at it. Ah, to be young again. Everything about the show was great, save one band member. He was wearing a Freddy Mercury looking suit, except instead of being checkered, it was half black, half white. I didn't particularly enjoy the songs he sang (they have three or four singers, depending on the song), and he was not very fan friendly. After his first song, he started shoving audience members (part of the performance?) on his way to the restroom perhaps. To get back to the stage, he did the same thing over again. He wasn't simply making his way through; he was shoving people. I saw it coming, so when he pushed me twice, it didn't bother me much. One audience member, a friend of mine, didn't take too kindly to being shoved around, so he shoved back. The result was a couple of fuck yous tossed back and forth. A struggling band should not shove its fans. Seems like a no brainer. However, one jerk out of ten band members is to be expected. During the show, shoes, balloons, glasses, stuffed animals, and people were flying and floating around the place. Audience participation can make or break a show, and these fans were really into it. The band even remarked about just how energetic and crazy the fans were. All in all, it was a really good and interesting show, perhaps in my top ten of all time, and I look forward to seeing The Protomen again in the future, or seeing the future Protomen in the present. Something like that.

If you'd like to follow up on this entry, here are some links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGvqMXYhYhU

http://www.protomen.com/