Aquabats All the Way!

[bonniegrrl]

Superheroes dressed like Santa? A large fuzzy green monster waving from the stage? Fans flashing weird hand signals to songs? A video backdrop of mashups with retro kung fu movies, anime, skateboard movies and '80s secret shame TV clips? Ska dancing and jumping around like crazy fools without a care in the world? Yup. It's an Aquabats show.

I've never been to one, and now I'm a convert. Sign me up, I'm going to every show. I'm gonna buy a van and follow them everywhere. I'm an Aquabats cadet through and through. Super rad!

I went to THE AQUABATS! HOLIDAY JUBILEE 2006 show at Slim's last week -- thanks to being put on the guestlist by the opening band -- Army of Freshmen -- who I interviewed on starwars.com about their bassist Kai Dodson who has an extreme case of fandom (he has Star Wars tattoos and legally changed his middle name to Lando!)

I had no idea what I was in for. Aquabats can only be described as if GWAR were SKA. Or maybe a Nickelodeon animated show in live action form. All I know is that it was FUN. And it's hard to have a fun show in San Fran. We're all jaded, we've seen everything, and we don't care if you rock or not. But I promise you, Aquabats will bring out the inner kid in you really fast. Before I knew it I was waving hand signals for WOW, and jumping up and down giggling like a freak.

One of the most endearing parts of the show is when they threw the future into the past (as they put it) by asking any little kids in the audience (there were 3 -- ages 5, 5, and 7) if they wanted to stage dive at their first punk show. It was so cute. If these guys had been around when I was a kid, I would have conquered the world by now.

Not that these clips do them any justice, but here ya go!

VIDEO
The Aquabats live -- "Super Rad"
"Super Rad" video
The Aquabats -- "Pizza Day" live
Aquabats Intermission - T-shirt video and Bunny Fight
The Aquabats! vs. the Lobster-Man-Thing
Aquabats - Giant Robot Birdhead live
Giant Robot Birdhead commercial

FULL SHOW at Slims from May 2006
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

LINKS:
Aquabats official site
Aquabats MySpace
Aquabats on Wiki