For your birthday we got you: Stuck Out Here, PKEW PKEW PKEW (Gunshots), Bloody Boy Blue, ROBOTS!EVERYWHERE!! @ ROBOT!HOUSE!
House shows are my favourite form of concert to begin with. Then add 100 balloons, birthday cupcakes and sangria, living room moshpits, a keytar, bands playing split sets and a drunken naked closer… yup, I LOVE ROBOT!HOUSE!
Friday night, November 29, started with the always fun ROBOTS!EVERYWHERE!!, the host for the evening as well. Phil played a great set full of sing-along songs that make him such a crowd favourite. I dare you not to sing with the sweaty one-man band on songs like “Ottawa Explosion,” “Zombie Smoothie” and “Call Me Some, Looking For Time.” The birthday boy’s smile never left his face and with balloons flying everywhere, I think it is safe to say everyone crowded into his living room was loving it also.
Up next was another one-man band, Bloody Boy Blue from Pontypool, Ontario. Armed with a keytar and an iPod for a backing band, he played a super fun dancy set. You have to check out his Soundcloud page to completely grasp the magic of Bloody Boy Blue. He sings songs about his fascination of a burrito girl, Jumbo Video, his love for Giant Tiger, the amazing power of Nintendo 64 and many more fun subjects. My favourite line was in his song about Jumbo Video when he sang “I was lost in your eyes like a monkey in Ikea.” So romantic. Such a fun set as the balloon chaos continued.
Headlining the night was PKEW PKEW PKEW (Gunshots) and Stuck Out Here, both from Toronto. The bands decided to do split sets, each blasting through three song sets. These mini-sets really got the partygoers going with living room moshpits, crowdsurfing, balloon throwing and band members playing standing on top of amps. PKEW PKEW PKEW (Gunshots) went first and played some sweet sweet sweet pop punk and their lead singer spent the entire time dancing through the crowd and standing on couches. My favourite of their songs was their super fun opener “Hanging Out.” I also loved their song about former Toronto Blue Jay player John McDonald cleverly called “Prime Minister.”
The other half of the headlining mini-sets was Stuck Out Here. The boys opened with maybe the most appropriate song of the evening, “Sober Up Tomorrow.” A song they said is about being drunk one night and still drunk in the morning. I am sure many of the partygoers could relate Saturday morning. Stuck Out Here closed out the night, or so we thought.
People who stayed around after Stuck Out Here got treated to a drunk Cory Levesque set. Normally equipped with an acoustic guitar, Cory worked through his set on an electric, much to his chagrin. He began wearing only his boxers, but by his second song he was naked. Yup, the only thing keeping it PG was the strategically placed guitar, which did not always stay where it should. Between songs Cory addressed the crowd “Sorry to all my friends who don’t know me just yet.” What a guy, so considerate. I think he won over a ton of new fans and friends, as he convinced everyone to provide vocal harmonica during his song, as he forgot his real one.