Wouldn't have it any other way

Less Than Jake/Pepper
Gainesville Flavet Field
November 12, 2007

Not long ago, my housemate and I were talking about the band Bloodhound Gang, and about how their brand of juvenile, aimed-at-high-schoolers-and-frat-guys music is inoffensive enough, but are they really going to still play the same songs when they're in their 40s? When dudes are a lot older than their audience, and are singing about sex and drugs and booze, it gets a little embarrassing. Enter the evocatively-named Pepper, a band from Hawaii, who know their audience very well, and accordingly play a really dull brand of lightweight ska-rock which all sounds the same, and only talk about how they love getting drunk/high and getting girls to take their tops off and such. Also, they had a song called 'Dirty Hot Sex' (sample lyric: "get down on your knees, and don't forget the balls"). Maybe it's because, at 24, I was older than most of the people in the audience (it was a free show at a college campus), but I just didn't like it at all. Nicest thing to say about Pepper? One dude looked like the main trapper (on the right) from 'Cannibal: The Musical'.

Less Than Jake are pretty juvenile, too - they get people to make out on stage, talk about drinking an awful lot - but at least they know how to have fun. Again, I only vaguely know a couple of their songs and went along because it was free and close to my house and some friends were going, but I had a good time. I didn't quite get the skanking right - my elbows weren't quite hitting my knees - but it was fun regardless. They mentioned a few times that they are from Gainesville, and how they haven't played on the UF campus in twelve years. They went down very well, but like Tom Petty or Chris Leak, they could shit in a trombone and people in Gainesville would go nuts. They threw out lots of t-shirts and other merch from the stage, which is cool I suppose, and they finished, of course, with a massive singalong to their most a propos jam. A nice way to not study on a Monday night, don't know if I'd have gone if it had required any effort on my part, but certainly check them out if you're at a festival and there are no conflicts with bands you'd rather see.

[download Less Than Jake - Gainesville Rock City]