CAKE surprised a hell of a lot of people in 2011 when their first studio album in over six years, Showroom of Compassion, debuted atop the Billboard 200. It was a testament to the bands longevity while shining a spotlight on the sheer lack of great albums being released in the age of the 99 cent download.
It was also a scary all time low for the music industry as the number one record in the country was only selling 44,000 copies.
CAKE formed in Sacramento back in 1991 and have since peppered the modern rock scene with memorable hit after hit. A signature vibraslap accents the band’s genre bending grooves infusing Country, Rock, Funk, Hip-Hop and Mariachi. Frontman and multi-instrumentalist Jon McCrea comes across just as you would expect from listening to his lyrics, brilliantly sarcastic but surprisingly serious.
I was lucky enough to have met McCrea and the rest of the band back on the Pressure Chief tour when I worked for Sony Music. (They were surprisingly dropped by Columbia Records shortly after.) In person he’s a bit awkward, but in a Jerry Seinfeld way. His sense of humor is dry but sharp and complemented by the easy going nature of the rest of the band.
McCrea is a vocal activist for humanitarian causes, notably global warming and world poverty. He frequently uses the band’s website and concerts as a platform to increase awareness about these and other causes. This particular evening McCrea is raffling off a tree live on stage to one lucky audience member who can guess what type it is and promise to send the band photos as the tree grows.
Playing several songs from the new album, CAKE had a Halloween night packed house dancing and singing along to some stellar tunes. This is the type of band where they play so well together that if one member had to be replaced, their sound would be drastically altered. The crowd was so into the new songs, they probably could have just played Showroom of Compassion in its entirely.
Fortunately, they brought the hits near the end of the set and even played a pretty killer CAKE-style version of the Black Sabbath classic “War Pigs.” A fantastic show overall, but the tree giveaway took a bit longer than I would have thought. So if you are heading to the show, please know how to identify a tree.
Were you at the CAKE show on Halloween Night in Oakland? What did you think of the show? Please share you thoughts in the comments below.
