Around Hear

“Hello, Kansas City,” shouted guitarist Jim Suptic, greeting arena-rock regulars with a familiar phrase before offering a twist. “We’re the Get Up Kids, and in case you didn’t know this, we’re from Kansas City too.” A sizable roar followed, boosted both by scenesters whose chests swelled with pride to see the Kids playing at a large KC venue for the first time and by Green Day-loving radio listeners who were glad to discover that these guys, whoever they were, hailed from their hometown.

Hale Arena, site of the Kids’ opening set in support of Green Day on Friday, January 26, presents concertgoers with a rare giant-barn ambience, but its clear sight lines and wide-open floor make it a fan-friendly place to catch a major act. The Get Up Kids looked the part, playing in front of an enormous banner that bore the band’s name, and its keyboard-injected rock proved well-suited to arena acoustics.

The band delivered a short, tight set, managing to sneak in such surprises as a cover of the Replacements‘ “Beer for Breakfast” fronted by Pinhead Gunpowder member and Green Day touring guitarist Jason White. “I’m sure none of the kids there knew who the Replacements were, but they cheered anyway,” Suptic says. “‘Yeah, Keanu Reeves, The Replacements, I’ve seen that movie.'” While the decision to play “Beer” was relatively spontaneous, an appearance by The Anniversary drummer Christian Jankowski during the Kids’ “Ten Minutes” was also unexpected. “He sang it every night during our last U.S. tour, so he decided to do it that night too,” says Suptic. “I didn’t know he was going to do it. When he ran out, all the kids in the audience were like, ‘Who’s that? Is he in Green Day?'”

In another unanticipated development, James Dewees‘ keyboard stand collapsed midsong, though disaster was averted when a crew hastily repaired the equipment. Suptic notes this isn’t the first time Dewees, whose shuffling dance moves and goofy choreographed steps with guitarist/vocalist Matt Pryor provide amusing interludes, has seen his instrument fall. “That’s the fourth keyboard he’s owned,” Suptic says. “One already broke on this tour, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We smashed the keyboard that was already totally broken — all the kids thought we were just smashing it for no reason — and we threw it out into the crowd. Another time, Matt jumped on James, they fell onto the keyboard, and it collapsed. You just never know what’s going to happen at a Get Up Kids show.”

On the other hand, fans have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen at a Green Day show. The group has been using the same shtick for a while: Vocalist/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong always injects a riff from Survivor‘s “Eye of the Tiger” into a covers medley, and during several other songs, the rhythm section provides a steady, muted interval while Armstrong engages the crowd in chants and banter. In one of the group’s most endearing stunts, it selects three musicians from the crowd to take over its instruments. During an extended break in its cover of Operation Ivy‘s “Knowledge,” Green Day offered the stage to a 17-year-old drummer, a 23-year-old bassist and a diminutive 13-year-old guitarist, all of whom were chosen at random out of a sea of hand-raisers.

The three musicians picked up their parts immediately, much to the crowd’s amusement, and the drummer even embellished his role with a few extra beats, while the guitarist held rhythm even as a slipping guitar strap dropped his ax near his ankles. After bringing the tune to a glorious climax, each of these kings-for-a-day dove from the stage. Part MTV’s Fanatic, part espousal of punk’s anybody-can-do-this rhetoric, Green Day’s creation of Kevin and the Maniax (Armstrong didn’t specify this spelling, but in the interest of emphasizing the local flavor, we use it here in honor of the venerable East 40 Highway dance club) felt like a genuine attempt to interact with the large crowd. Of course Suptic, having been on the road with the group for two and a half weeks, had seen it all before. So how did the KC crew rank against other impromptu amateur trios?

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“I’d give them a B if I had to grade them,” Suptic decides. “The best one I saw was the very first night, when they had some 8-year-old kid playing guitar. There were some pretty bad ones too. But it’s something they’ll never forget the rest of their lives. They’ll probably be in bands forever and piss off their parents because they got to experience this.”

Far from being pissed off, the Get Up Kids’ parents all showed up to express their support. “My mom never usually comes out to shows because she doesn’t want to be in a smoky bar, so this was a cool thing,” Suptic says. In a typically vulnerable down-to-earth display, the Kids continually offered shout-outs to their parents from the stage, as well as making a plug for indie record store Recycled Sounds. Not to be outdone, Armstrong also dedicated a song to the Kids’ parents: “Blood, Sex and Booze.” “Your boys have been bad,” he explained.

The Get Up Kids have a few weeks to rest before heading back out on the road in support of another alt-rock supergroup, Weezer. For that tour, which stops at Memorial Hall on Monday, March 12, the Kids have access to a full-size bus — a welcome change from their van, especially given a shake-up the band experienced on the morning of the Green Day show. “We were crossing the Iowa/Missouri border, and it was snowing really bad,” Suptic recalls. “We hit an ice patch and did a 180 on the highway. Our trailer smashed out a window, and we ran off the road. It was pretty exciting, but nobody was hurt. In five years of touring it was our first big accident and, hopefully, our last. I think everybody’s sick of the van now.”

Actually, the band members, who have written ten new tunes, weren’t planning to do much traveling this winter. Pryor had been playing solo shows in the area and preparing for a brief string of gigs with his side project, New Amsterdams, while the band was, as Suptic says, “in full songwriting mode.” Still, this was Green Day and Weezer. “We didn’t want to turn those tours down,” he explains. “But our goal is still to record this summer.”

As excited as he was to be playing with Green Day, Suptic had his doubts about how the Get Up Kids would be received. “We were honestly expecting people to throw beer bottles at us and chant ‘Green Day’ the whole time we played,” he reveals. The group was haplessly heckled by an athletic-looking bunch sporting Korn and Limp Bizkit T-shirts who implored the somewhat shaggy Kids to “get a haircut.”

Suptic also endured a single fan’s silent harassment. “He flipped me off the whole time, and I thought it was a kid I’d gone to high school with, so I was like, ‘Shit, what did I do to him?'” he says. “But if getting flipped off was the worst we got, then I guess it was a pretty good tour for us.”

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Arena Rock, Part Two

After the Green Day show, an enormous Batman-style projection of the KRBZ 96.5 logo appeared on Kemper Arena’s outside wall. Inside, the Blades battled an opponent, reinforcing the fact that on hockey nights, music and Kemper usually are mutually exclusive. However, the excellent Springfield, Missouri-based Domino Kings were able to find middle ground, playing two sets on Friday, January 19, while fans filed in to see the Blades take on the ridiculously named Solar Bears from Orlando. The location (between two concession stands) was optimal, if not aesthetically pleasing, and the group delivered an adrenalized set in front of an impressive number of intrigued hot-dog buyers.

“It was a really good experience,” reports bassist Brian Capps. “We got a lot of exposure [in front of] a lot of people who wouldn’t necessarily come out to a bar or a club to see us.” One such demographic: a pack of golden-voiced Olathe South students, on hand to deliver the national anthem, who dutifully line-danced to such honky-tonk tunes as “Borrow a Lie.” “I enjoyed that,” Capps says. “I sure didn’t expect it, especially at a hockey game.”

Though another club gig is likely, the Kings might spend a summer night playing at another sports venue, one fit for royalty. Capps says the president of his band’s label, Slewfoot Records, has discussed a before- or after-show gig at Kauffman Stadium.