Wakey! Wakey! at 7th Street Entry (11/7/2010)

Mike Grubbs, aka Wakey! Wakey!, was in rare form the night of November 7^th at 7^th Street in Minneapolis. He spoke almost as much as he played, leaving the rest of the band to dub him “Talky! Talky!”.

Warming up the show was Jenny Owen Youngs, since I’m dyslexic when it comes to pretty girls, we’ll just call her Young Jenny. I was quite impressed with her, how she handles playing to an audience of mostly young girls (so guys, if you were wondering where all the girls were that night…) From just hearing her songs for the first time, they seem to be songs about insecurities and (ruined) relationships, which I find kind of hard to believe from a heartthrob like Young Jenny here. The audience loved her, sang back to all the chorus, particularly “F*** Was I”.

As a cover lover, I did appreciate Youngs playing Motion City Soundtrack, she’s been playing a different cover every night based on the city she’s in. Not that anyone knew, but Motion City Soundtrack is actually from Minneapolis.

Wakey! Wakey! took the stage shortly after, and of course, you noticed that their drummer was pulling double duty (playing for Youngs and now with Wakey). Grubbs seems really, really, happy to be surrounded by attractive women. Most of the set consisted of new songs, like “The Oh Song” from his latest release, Almost Everything I Wish I’d Said The Last Time I Saw You…, but he did polish off some chestnuts from Worst Sweater EP. The old song in question was “Blame You”, which the rest of the band left Grubbs by himself.

Oddly enough, he played “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, which as you know, Greg Laswell also does this Cyndi Lauper cover a few days ago. Grubbs said his version was as if Radiohead had written the song, so basically making “Girls” quite a depressing song.

Best song of the night was “Dance So Good”, which Grubbs said that was the reason why they were on tour. He said it was the “Dance Tour” and had hoped people will pick up a random person and dance with them. People didn’t do this, but they did help him sing the ending lyrics (which was so nice that Grubbs and the band just ends the song there).

If you are interested in hearing more Wakey! Wakey! cover songs, his cover lover album, Wakey! Wakey! Wednesday is available as a free download. So check out his version of popular artists like Weezer, YYY, and Alicia Keys. Wakey! Wakey! is wrapping his tour up, so there’s still a small chance you can catch him being Talky Talky.