Trust me, I was not planning on dropping by Sunday night’s CAKE
concert at the Paramount. But when I got word that Throw Me the
Statue, maybe the most exciting young band in Seattle right now, would be opening, I couldn’t resist. Throw Me the Statue are at a
somewhat precipitous moment in their career—signed to a serious
indie (Secretly Canadian), charting modestly on KEXP, landing a song in
a TV commercial. How would Throw Me the Statue deal with that giant
room? How might they win over the CAKE audience? Hell, what would
CAKE’s audience even look like (backward white caps and microbrew
T-shirts)?
In a way, though, the two bands are not so different. They just come
from opposite ends of the same college-rock spectrum—CAKE from
the No-Cal, state school, frat party side of campus; Throw Me the
Statue from the East Coast, private liberal-arts college, library study
group. But this dichotomy—keg jocks versus indoor kids—is
probably a little misleading. CAKE, whatever their unforgivable
jock-jam faults, were clever and campy enough to deliver at least one
good ’90s novelty song (“Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle”) and cover
disco-torch song “I Will Survive.” Throw Me the Statue—for all
their sensitive, wordy lyricism—look not
entirely unathletic
(they’re also not-
so-secret football fans).
Throw Me the Statue started promptly at 7:00 p.m., playing to a
partially full, seated audience, with ushers still leading people to
their seats by flashlight. “Wow. The echo in here is unreal,” noted singer Scott Reitherman between songs, testing the reverb with a
tentative, ricocheting “Woo!”
Reitherman said the band only found out four days ago that
they would be opening the show, that they “peed themselves,” “were
tickled” at the opportunity, and were “psyched to see CAKE.” Their
drummer gave a shout-out “to all the moms in the audience” for Mother’s
Day. This is how they would attempt to win the crowd. These are sweet,
polite young men. They love their moms. They’re nice to the headliners,
even when they must know they’re a much better band.
They played “Young Sensualists” with a more rollicking, propulsive
backbeat than on their record, Reitherman’s voice looming huge in the
high concert hall, the band’s usual energetic gestures dwarfed by the
big stage. In a nod to the extra room and perhaps also to CAKE’s
signature trumpet, they brought a three-piece horn section out
for “Take It or Leave It” and “Groundswell,” lending the former a touch
of ska and the latter a little goofy sax improvisation. They played two
of the strongest tracks from their debut album, Moonbeams, the
giddily swerving, glockenspiel-rocking crush-out “Lolita” and the
obliquely anthemic “About to Walk.”
“This stage is enormous,” exclaimed Reitherman. “Whew!” He then
asked the dark, seated, partially full theater if there were any
questions. Someone asked for their name and the band introduced
themselves: “We’re Throw Me the Statue, we’re from here. We live among
you.” Someone asked again later, and the band reintroduced
themselves. It seemed like a good sign. 