Natalie Somekh via Instagram
John McCrea.
The Westville Music Bowl really lives up to its name. Sitting in the center feels like being dropped to the bottom of an enormous serving piece, with nowhere to look but up at the great blue walls of seats around you, the evening sky above, or the stage straight ahead. On the menu for Wednesday evening: Cake, a now-venerable alternative rock band hailing from Sacramento, California.
Vince DiFiore, Daniel McCallum, Todd Roper, John McCrea, and Xan McCurdy.
The band consists of a collection of multi-talented musicians, comfortable with tackling a variety of genres and instruments. John McCrea, a founding member and the lead singer, also plays guitar. Vince DiFiore, another founding member, plays the trumpet and keyboard, and does backup vocals together with Xan McCurdy on electric guitar, Daniel McCallum on bass, and Todd Roper on drums. All of the members also play percussion, such as a noisemaker, a vibraslap, and maracas.
Cake opened with “Frank Sinatra,” a bittersweet ode to music and memory. “We know of an ancient radiation / That haunts dismembered constellations / A faintly glimmering radio station,” crooned McCrea. He stood out from the band in his white T‑shirt reading “I [heart symbol] Democracy,” while the other members dressed in black and slate grays. The crowd went wild when DiFiore stood up to play his trumpet, which seemed to be in conversation with McCrea’s vocals. The mournful, nostalgic notes complemented McCrea’s words to create a duet of sounds.
In contrast to the cynical and sometimes depressing lyrics of Cake’s songs, the atmosphere at Westville Music Bowl was bright and almost childishly gleeful. Framing the stage, machines blew a haze of smoke over the artists and streams of bubbles out toward the audience. A giant disco ball hung above it all, sending fractured freckles of light over the crowd when caught by one of the colorful spotlights. Audience members in the floor seats tossed around an inflatable beach ball, letting it bounce over the crowd in swooping arcs.
With the second song, the rousing “Sheeps Go To Heaven,” McCrea encouraged the audience to join in, conducting them like a choirmaster. “The voices get louder and more sure of themselves,” he narrated, and the audience followed his lead. “Louder, and louder… Beautiful.”
“Give yourselves a hand, you are an important part of this,” said McCrea. Then, “This is a song that we wrote about how much we missed you” — New Haven — “And your pizza.” The band launched into “Long Time.” Cake doesn’t use a set list, opting instead to choose their songs based on what they feel like playing at any given moment. This creates a feeling of spontaneity, both for the band and for the audience. It also makes it easier to slip new songs, like “Long Time,” in for a little surprise.
McCrea asked the audience to sing along once again during “Meanwhile, Rick James,” a song about heartache and jealousy. (The storyline, which suggests that Rick James slept with the singer’s girlfriend, is fictional and intended as a lighthearted tribute to James himself, whose music McCrea has admired since age seven.) “By singing, it was like [you were] getting a free beer,” said McCrea. “The chemicals were released into your bloodstream and made you just a little happier.”
McCrea proved an expressive, gesticulative singer, guiding the audience with his hands. Meanwhile McCallum and Roper maintained a compulsive beat that reverberated through the stadium like the pounding of a single, giant heart. Together, Cake kept a crowd of roughly 5,000 people under their thrall, united by the music.
During “Sick of You,” McCrea encouraged the audience to release any negativity they might feel en masse by singing the chorus, declaring it “safer that way.” He divided the crowd into two sections: the “escapists,” who seek freedom through fantasy worlds or recreational drugs; and the “angry,” who blame others for their lack of emotional control. The escapists sang “I wanna fly away,” while the angry chimed in with “I’m so sick of you, so sick of me / I don’t want to be with you.” Together, the audience participated in a massive release of pent up resentment in a surprisingly therapeutic way.
After a brief intermission, CAKE shared a band tradition of giving away a tree for someone to plant at most of their shows. They take it very seriously, as McCrea soon proved.
“It’s a lifetime commitment … I just want to make sure you have a plan and a good place to put the tree,” he told the sea of waving volunteers. But an issue arose: McCrea discovered that this particular tree was a lemon tree, which doesn’t grow in Connecticut.
“Maybe they will now!” shouted a hopeful audience member.
To the crowd’s disappointment, McCrea explained that he has a strict code about tree planting, and that means it has to grow in the ground, not a moveable pot or a greenhouse. “They hate that, I’ve talked to them, they told me!” he insisted. An aide removed the plant, but it lingered on in everyone’s minds. McCrea was so distracted by the mix-up that he had to stop in the middle of the song “Wheels,” forgetting the words in the midst of thinking about the lemon tree. Luckily, several devoted fans were able to remind him, screaming out the chorus, “Wheels keep on spinning round, spinning round, spinning round.”
“We were talking about this backstage, that’s why we come and see live music,” said McCrea. “There’s the potential that someone could fuck up.”
Cake ended the night with a sequence of their greatest hits, such as “Short Skirt / Long Jacket” and “The Distance.” For each song, the audience broke into excited cheers at the first few notes, immediately recognizing the favorites. This time, McCrea didn’t have to prompt them for them to sing along.
When Cake left the stage, the crowd cheered and chanted for several long minutes until the band returned for an encore of “Pentagram” and “Jolene.” At Westville Music Bowl, it seemed nobody had had their fill of Cake.
