Andrew W.K., The Social, Orlando, FL 03.07.03
Posted by Ryan T. Murphy on 03.10.2003
When it's time to party, I can party pretty hard
After literally months of waiting, I trekked through the veritable labyrinth of streets that is downtown Orlando with one goal in mind: PAAAAAAARTYING at the Andrew WK show! I set out in my friend Andrew's minivan with some of his friends and the knowledge that he had to be up at 7 the next morning. This becomes important later. We enter the Social and right away I run into some friends and regulars, including hardcore guru Carter and the famous Little Ryan. Although we were 15 minutes late for doors, the club was still filling in and we scored an excellent spot next to the stage, where the bands enter. The lights went, err, up (for some reason they had us sitting in the dark) and the show began.
The first three bands are all on a tour, with Andy just joining them for this particular show. They can all basically be summed up at once because there were only subtle differences between them at best. Openers The Washdown were energetic but uninspiring. The crowd just sat there and watched, generally immobile. The band was pretty good and they seemed to be having fun up there, which made it hard to dislike their set. The Washdown's sound is trashy noise-rock, something close to garage rock but with more emphasis on the 'rock' part. Equal amounts of fuzz and distortion though. The next band, with a very similar sound, were Ikara Colt from England. They were putting even more energy into their set than The Washdown, but the crowd just wasn't biting.
The most notable part of the set was the lead singer jumping into the crowd and getting no love, and then at the end of the song declaring "we keep a logbook of all the crowds at our shows. So far, Orlando gets a two out of ten." Later, someone yelled an anti-British sentiment to the lead singer, to which he replied "Have you ever even been to Manchester? Well then shut your fuckin' gob." Chick-noise band Sahara Hotnights followed. They were from Sweden so absolutely none of the mid-song banter made sense. They were pretty skilled for a girl band, but their songs were somewhat bland and uninspiring. Yet again, no crowd action. All three of these bands were ok at best, as they seemed to be 'album bands' instead of live bands.
You'd think it was an entirely different group of people at the Social when Andrew WK were about to go on. The stage lights went up at one point and the crowd nearly had a collective heart attack. The band took their places to get on, standing right next to me by the stage. The bass player (whose name I don't know, sadly, as I don't have any liner notes and there's no listing of their names anywhere I can find) mentioned to me that we can all get up and rush the stage if we want to. They got up onstage and the chants of "Andrew! Andrew! Andrew!" filled the Social. His tour manager Big Daddy (a Gimli from LotR lookalike) introduced him and the man himself, Andrew fuckin WK walked by me & took the stage!
We all rushed the side section of the stage as the band launched into Time to Party. Carter and his friends were the first to get up close to AWK, as they all headwalked on the now rabid crowd. Soon it was a mad rush to crowd the stage, with more people than I thought possible getting up there & rocking out with Andrew & the band. It wasn't until "She is Beautiful" that I went to center stage, although I couldn't get past the 20 or so people surrounding Andrew. I took my first jump off the stage then but quickly wormed my way back up. I found myself right next to the guitarist (again, don't know his name, but he's the one who always wears the Hawaiian shirts and looks disturbingly like Richard Reid) and his mic. He turned to me and said on the mic "Whats your name, man?" To which I replied to the rabid crowd "Murphy" followed by a chorus of cheers. He then asked if I was "having a good time tonight?" which led me to say "Fuckin' A, man." Again, mass hysteria in the crowd. Then he leaned over to me and said, off the mic, "hey man watch the swearing, ok?"
How bizarre...
Anyway he was then like "Well my new friend Murphy here might know this next song, its called I GET WET!" By this time, the stage was filled way beyond acceptability. Its broken before, just back in late October when Throwdown had a bunch of kids onstage. So Big Daddy went to his job of pushing people off the stage. Now, I plummeted straight to the ground on my first jump, as I'm WAY too big to surf or headwalk. This time, I tried to resist actually getting pushed offstage, because I knew it wouldn't turn out too well for me or anyone under me. Some older looking guy took his spill and I tripped over him and started down. The problem was, there were some speakers between me & the floor, and soon I found myself with my back on the floor and my feet still onstage. I also happened to have taken down the speaker and accidentally unplugged Andrew's mic.
I stayed offstage at this point, faring my way on the floor for the climax of the show. Andrew's mic kicked over to effects briefly as he cried out "When its time to party we will party hard!" This caused a finger-pointing, crowd-jolting, lyric-chanting EXPLOSION on the floor, as everyone got into AWK's first hit, "Party Hard.” The stage was so congested with people that Andrew WK wasn’t even visible (although Little Ryan was front and center, interestingly). At the end of the song, AWK was hoisted into the air while we on the floor chanted “ANDREW! ANDREW!” and Andrew thanked us, saying it had been one of the best nights of his life.
The 411: He then asked if I was "having a good time tonight?" which led me to say "Fuckin' A, man." Again, mass hysteria in the crowd.
