Sing along with CAKE

We saw CAKE a week ago with our friend Bill outdoors at the Edgefield.  It was a lot of fun, I mean that literally.  Sure I have fun when I go to concerts but I go to hear music and enjoy where the emotional experience takes me.  I got all that from the CAKE show but I also experienced a lot of humor, laughter, smiles, silliness that added up to a whole lot of fun.

I do not think I have ever been to a show where the band had so much consistent interaction with the audience.  Not only was there a lot of call and response but multiple times songs were extended out so John McCrea could teach the audience the lyrics or what to sing.  Often times it involved long elaborate explanations about how one side of the audience had one view and the other side had another view while encouraging us all to out-sing the other side.  I was laughing more than I was singing a lot of the time.

After more than half the show was done, the band stopped the show to talk about the small tree that was on stage with them.  Bill noticed it earlier because it was the only piece of decoration on a rather sparse stage. It turns out that at each show, they ask the audience to guess not only what kind of tree they had on stage but the specific species as well.  The winner was awarded with the actual tree.  The crowd at the Portland show guessed the type but not the specific species.  I did notice that the slacker who won it has not provided proof of his new tree.  I believe the band suggested the rest of the audience hunt him down if he did not plant the tree.

All in all, a great show in the beautiful sunshine and a nice way to end the outdoor summer concert season.  Here is a road video from CAKE themselves leaving downtown Portland and heading to the Edgefield: