Review: Cake at Rabbit Rabbit

Dreams came true on Aug. 8 at Rabbit Rabbit when Cake played its first Asheville show in 22 years. Or at least such desires were mostly fulfilled.

The quirky rockers packed the downtown outdoor venue, selling out tickets months in advance and sending resale prices soaring to six times the face value. While fans who acted early were treated to their rmoney’s worth, those who overpaid may have felt somewhat conned by the short but sweet experience.

Billed as “An Evening with Cake,” the night included no opening act and played out with essentially a pair of eight-song sets, divided by an intermission. The earlier-than-usual 7:15 p.m. start time heralded a sooner-than-usual exit from the space — nearly an hour before the 10 p.m. sound-ordinance curfew — and while John McCrea & Co. delivered the goods, there was a sense that a little something was lacking.

The setlist, however, wasn’t the issue. Though the band’s legendary cover of “I Will Survive” was omitted, practically every big hit from opener “Frank Sinatra” to second set opener “Love You Madly” made the cut, as did such secondary jams as my personal favorite, the synth-tastic “Meanwhile, Rick James…,” and arguably their funkiest tune (which probably should have been sampled for a hip-hop track by now), “Wheels.”

When he wasn’t popping his vibraslap to whoops of delight from the audience, McCrea kept busy prompting singalongs, imploring the gathered faithful with giant chopping motions of both arms and memorably dividing the crowd in half for “Sheep Go to Heaven,” tasking each side with one of the chorus’ farmyard clauses.

And in the encore, he humorously looped in the “rich people” in the balcony to take a spin with the “na na na”s on “Short Skirt/Long Jacket,” becoming the second consecutive Rabbit Rabbit act to feature skewering of the elite, following Chevelle’s joking (?) tsk-tsking the week before.

These antics were wholly welcome, as were McCrea’s handful of T-shirt cannon launches, one of which was snared by a guy in carrot costume behind the sound booth, suggesting some pinpoint aiming had occurred. But the frontman’s excessive banter disrupted the show’s flow more than he likely intended.

While the first set progressed fairly seamlessly and with general high energy, the band’s traditional fig tree giveaway atop the second set ate up a good 15 minutes, derailing momentum and hogging space that might have gone to another song or three.

Perhaps because of this delayed resumption of joy and the oddly M.I.A. “I Will Survive,” the rest of the performance felt somewhat lethargic by comparison — an entertaining and lovely-sounding collection of some of the best original music of the past 30-plus years, but an event that didn’t quite live up to its potential.

(Photos by Arlo Abrams)