An evening with Cake @ Olympia▪

Reluctantly crouched as we stand in line, knees pumping and thumping in time… no, seriously, there was a massive lineup, and Cake fans are old now. Open the doors on time!

With the crowd finally inside, we skipped straight to the main act, as is tradition with the “an evening with” format. The band walked out looking just as old as their fans. Singer John McCrea’s beard was as white as snow. They looked like your uncle’s cover band that plays the town fair, in the best way possible.

From the opening tap of the drumsticks, I knew we were starting things off with Frank Sinatra. This song has lived rent free in my head for almost 30 years, right next to the DuckTales theme. The crowd lit up, singing the haunting melody as loudly as the band.

I’m a big fan of no photo policies. I love watching a show without having 30 cell phones in my way. The explanation got a mixed reaction from the crowd, but there was a huge missed opportunity here. If one of your hit songs is called No Phone, how do you not follow the announcement up with it? In fact, the song was left off the setlist entirely. Weird.

The only other singles we got in the opening set were Sheep Go To Heaven and Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps, both of which were heavy in crowd participation. In fact, the first set was only seven songs long.

I’m a big fan of the “an evening with” format, no opener and two full sets, and an encore, with all the hits. But this wasn’t a full set. It was 35 minutes, followed by an equal 35-minute intermission. And when the band got back, they didn’t go back to music. They came back with a gimmick where they give out a tree to an audience member representative of the area. They brought out a baby apple tree. There was a whole ceremony to find the lucky winner. It’s a very cool idea, but this could’ve been the intermission.

We went just under an hour without music after only 35 minutes of music. And before getting back to it, McCrea laughed at the long break and brought out a T-shirt cannon and said, “Now I know there’s probably some guy in the crowd complaining that his knees hurt and he just wants to hear songs, may this T-shirt find him.” I thought, my dude, you’re going to need more T-shirts.

Finally the second set started. It was only eight songs, with only two singles, their cover of I Will Survive and set closer Never There. While well received, this could’ve easily been one set, clocking in at about an hour. When I saw an evening with 76-year-old Chris de Burgh, he played 32 songs for close to three hours. And he played all his hits. Songs like Let Me Go, Satan Is My Motor, Love You Madly, No Phone, and Friend Is a Four Letter Word weren’t left off the setlist. If this wasn’t advertised as an evening with Cake, this might’ve flown a little more under the radar.

Finally, we were sent home with the power encore of Short Skirt/Long Jacket, their cover of War Pigs, and the ubiquitous The Distance. This was definitely the peak of the show. Was it worth the journey to get there? Probably. But did the journey need to be as it was? Not a chance. We got catfished by the promise of a career retrospective and got a regular show.