Maybe a year or two ago, local rock stations started playing a song called “Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked,” a catchy little tune with some bottleneck guitar and slick lyrics that would easily get stuck in my head. Eventually I caught the name of the band – Cage the Elephant – and I discovered that I knew several other songs through regular radio play upon further investigation (“Shake Me Down,” “In One Ear”), without ever realizing who they were. Perhaps I need to pay more attention while listening the radio?
Last week, The Foo Fighters passed through Sacramento’s Power Balance Pavilion (after a two-week delay caused by an “unforeseen scheduling conflict”) and I was pleased to discover that these guys were along for the ride. While Dave Grohl & Co. were clearly the main attraction, I was more than a little curious to see what Cage the Elephant had to offer and, judging by the sizable crowd that had gathered for the opening act, I wasn’t the only one who recognized their name.
As they took the stage, the first thing that shot into my mind was, “Dang, these guys look like a bunch of young punks.” In my mind I had pictured some older country-like dudes with cowboy hats and checkered shirts or something. I'm not really sure where this impression came from, but I certainly wasn’t expecting the lanky Matthew Shultz to be grabbing the mic.
I may have been initially misled by the image I had cultivated for the band on my own, but any questions I had quickly vanished as they cut into their first few songs. These guys sounded solid, with Shultz transforming into an unrelenting ball of energy. Barely into the show, he took a sudden stage dive and crowd-surfed among screaming fans for a fair amount of time, before scrambling back onto the stage. If he were to get knocked out doing that, he explained to the audience, they were to continue passing his body around the arena for the rest of the show. This bad of kids was there to party, and so far they were delivering a quality rock show with confidence.
Clearly I wasn’t the only one listening to the radio lately, because songs like “No Rest…” prompted quality sing-alongs from the audience. Other members of the band didn’t quite match the energy of their frontman, but they did a solid job throughout the set. Cage the Elephant proved to be a quality lead-up to the energetic Foo Fighters performance, and have certainly caught my attention. They are returning to Sacramento on December 9th for a show at Ace of Spades, which just might be worth my money.
I think these guys are worth keeping an eye on over the coming years. Three or four of their songs have stuck around long enough to keep them out of one-hit-wonder status and, with performances like the one they gave in Sacramento, I’m sure more people are going to start hopping on the Elephant bandwagon very, very soon. Not bad for a bunch of young punks.
Artist:
www.cagetheelephant.com/
www.myspace.com/cagetheelephant
www.facebook.com/cagetheelephant
www.twitter.com/cagetheelephant
Photos:
Cage The Elephant – Power Balance Pavilion in Sacramento, CA – November 1, 2011 – [Photos]
Tour:
Cage The Elephant's North American continues. Click here for a list of confirmed shows.
