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Butch Walker The Fags Low Millions The Magic Bag May 22, 2005 All words and photos by Matt Caruana  As The Fags took the
stage Sunday night at the Magic Bag in the midst of a month long tour,
singer/guitarist John Speck could hardly believe what he saw as the
club was more packed than most people had ever seen. He made
mention of this and noted that he was happy to be home to finally see
some familiar faces. The band kicked off the set with old
favorite “Truly Truly” and mixed songs from its self-titled EP along
with tracks from the group’s forthcoming record on Sire. The Fags
sounded tighter than previous occasions and tweaked with the
arrangements of certain songs such as “Miss Take,” which was the most
noticeably different. The trio’s excitement was noticeable
throughout the set (especially Speck, who couldn’t have been more
thrilled with talking about the new record and about how great the
crowd was). Tour mate Butch Walker joined the band onstage with a
glass of wine in hand and lent his vocals to the song “List”. New
song “Rock Star”, which could possibly be the album’s first single,
featured what Speck called “the fourth member of The Fags, the
cowbell.” Other ‘new’ songs included “Siren Song,” “Look Me Over”,
“Tonight” and “Greatest Movie Ending,” which usually involves Jimmy
pouring beer on his drum set; this time, however, we had to settle for
bottled water. Butch Walker took the stage to a very vocal crowd, many of whom looked like extras straight out of a WB TV show. Walker started his hour-and-a-half set with “Uncomfortably Numb” off the record Letters (his set was based predominantly on that album). The intro to “#1 Summer Jam” included a good amount of the Who’s “The Kid’s Are Alright”, complete with Townshend-esque windmills. Walker let his band take a break for bit and played a few songs on the piano - “Joan” and “Cigarette Lighter Love Song,” an oldie from his former band Marvelous 3. He then took center stage with his acoustic guitar and played “Suburbia” which included a comically mangled piece of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl.” The highlight of the show was an amazing version of the emotional “The Best Thing That You Never Had,” which showed off Walker’s incredible vocal range as well as his multiple broken guitar strings. Walker and the band played through a rocking version of INXS’s “Don’t Change” for the encore and finished up with set with a never ending version of the shout-along “Lights Out.”  Walker made the crowd feel as if it
was at an arena show the way he energetically worked the show.
The set-list was constructed to include the arena rockers, piano
ballads, solo songs and the ever-popular breakup anthems. He had
everyone loudly counting off songs, singing along to choruses, and
doing the rock-star overhead clap. Walker also used just about ever
rock star pose in the book, doing such things as throwing guitar picks
in the air, jumping off the bass drum, and playing guitar solos as
close on the edge of the stage as possible … you name it, he did it,
though it never came across as cheesy or forced. Walker also
talked a lot throughout the set about the songs and random other topics
that made the show seem more personable. |
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