Andrew W.K.

support White Trash Presidents
author PP date 24/07/14 venue Pumpehuset, Copenhagen, DEN

Andrew W.K. is an institute within partying, as those in the know are already aware. With more songs about partying, drinking beer, and puking everything out afterwards than anybody else in the world, the self-crowned king of party was sure to attract a dedicated audience of college kids and those of us who wish university never ended Van Wilder style. It's the middle of a steaming hot summer evening, so the setting is perfect for mindless fun, which is exactly how this 'show' can be described as. But first, let's dissect tonight's opening band, a half-and-half split between Danish and Swedish worshippers of the 80s hard rock scene, White Trash Presidents.

White Trash Presidents

And when I write worshippers, I mean that in the strictest possible meaning of the word. These guys play extremely standard hard rock / rock'n'roll that sounds a little bit like later Papa Roach material in that it's looking back into the hard rock movement. The band plays with attitude and their vests are quickly abandoned for a bare-chested performance drenched in sweat due to the heat, but sadly their entire image and sound is so riddled with clichés it's difficult to take it seriously. Like my fellow reviewer said, they are basically the band from the movie Old School, meaning they look and feel totally forced. No identity whatsoever is present as the band shamelessly ravage through every possible hard rock cliché, alternating at sounding like a Guns N' Roses cover band and a Pearl Jam clone. Their stage movement suggests that the band really believe in what they do, however, they sound like a gazillion other bands so it's difficult to enjoy them thoroughly. They'd be a more appropriate support for Papa Roach than the party hard of Andrew W.K. if you ask me.

Andrew W.K.

Well... where to start with this one. There are literally three completely different ways to review Andrew W.K.'s 'show', because it wasn't really a show rather than a house party.

Party party party party. Party? Party hard. Party party party - it's time to party. Let's party yeahhhhh! Party party party. Ready to party? FUCK YEAH. BEER DOWN IT NOW. PARTY. HARD. PAR-TY, PAR-TY, PAR-TY, PAR-TY, PAR-TY. WOOHOO PARTYYYYYYYYY. 10/10.

Yeah. Nowhere on 190 DKK ticket was it mentioned that Andrew W.K. wasn't bringing a band along and that all guitars, bass, and drums would be coming from playback, and the only people on stage would be mr. Andrew W.K. himself with a keyboard, and his tour manager 'ladyboy', who would be featuring both as a support vocalist and a party supervisor (read: getting people ready to party at all times). I'd be pissed if I had paid good money to attend this show. Instead, we have Andrew maniacally ramming his keyboard (which seemed to come from backing track occasionally as well) surrounded by a few dozen people going crazy around him.

Performance-wise, your experience depends entirely on where you were standing at the show. From the back, this was an absolutely terrible show with a ridiculous amount of people on stage dancing to some dude hammering on a keyboard with no real instrumentation present. From the front, it was pretty decent because you could feel the energy on stage. But the real 'show' was definitely happening on stage which flooded with the audience early on and from here on, it felt like being right in the middle of this scene. Like a massive fucking house party with everyone going wild, breakdancing happening on the floor of the stage, and occasionally singing along with people surrounding the tour manager and Andrew himself to shout at the microphone.

Basically the scene of the whole show

60. 59. 58. 57. 56. 55. 54. 53. 52. 51. 50. 49. 48. 47. 46. 45. 44. 43. 42. 41. 40. 39. 38. 37. 36. 35. 34. 33. 32. 31. 30. 29. 28. 27. 26. 25. 24. 23. 22. 21. 20. 19. 18. 17. 16. 15. 14. 13. 12. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. PARTY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that was an actual ridiculous countdown with people shouting each number that resulted into a stage-wide dance pit. Lots of gimmicks like these and basically "Party Hard" on repeat made sure that the whole set felt like being in an insane house party, at least if you were standing on stage.

And yeah, it was fun. Super fun actually. But is that really a concert? From a critic's perspective it is absolutely ridiculous to proclaim this was even a concert, so the only appropriate rating would be house party out of 10. In real terms, let's go with a number that reflects this not being a concert at all, but still with a solid performance from Andrew's part.

6

Photos by: Christian Søes

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