What the devil?

So we went to the bigtime West Chester Bash where Smash Mouth entertained the masses of midwestern kiddos and their parents. You have to live in West Chester to appreciate how far the mighty have fallen that this top forty hit band would come here for a gig. Sure, we have a respectable upper middle class crowd who can swill the Warsteiner with the best of them. But honestly, these folk are mostly country-western fans or devotees of Fox classic rock.

The "bash" boasted an unattractive platform stage bordered by huge speakers that couldn't be heard on the other side of the festival. So much for big sound. Above the performers hung a tacky plastic banner promoting PNC Bank, of all things. Not exactly rock band material.

No matter. When Smash Mouth got to the stage and began with the soundtrack from Shrek 1, everyone got jiggy with it.

Then the mid concert slump hit in song two. These guys look older and more tired than they probably are, their five albums are lack luster and for stage presence, they offered a strange mix of rasta hair on the bassist and an oversized black shirt on the lead singer.

We endured a bunch of songs we couldn't hear well or understand to get to "Walkin' on the Sun" where little girls and women who should have stayed on the ground got up on stage to dance. I'm now at the uncomfortable age where my peer group embarrasses me. I mean do we really need forty-something women shakin' what their mamas gave them oh so long ago for everyone to see? Yikes. I wanted to yell "Family hold back!"

Then the show picked up as the bassist entoned the distinctive riffs of none other than rock gods Van Halen. Unfortuantely, that's when the whole experience just got flat out weird.

Lead singer Steve Harwell shouted "Are there any parents in the house?"

::Cheers and beers::

"This one, I said, THIS ONE is for the parents!"

And suddenly we were into a ripped off version of "Runnin with the Devil." That's right, for all those terrific parents out there who 'run with the devil' every day so that their kids can grow up to 'run with the devil', this song's for you. The wild child in each forty-something male broke free and lifted his beer in honor of all those days of devil runnin'. It was, sniff, sniff, beautiful.

Then a misguided blonde in her forties and bouncing halter top scaled her husband's shoulders and flashed devil horns to the beat for the whole song! (Amazing how she balanced that beer and didn't spill a drop on her kids, either.)

Yes, we run with the devil - this one's for us!

In case we hadn't gotten in touch with our inner devils (those of us who grew up in the decade to forget—the 70s), Smash Mouth played a little VH encore: "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" because, hey, these songs are for the parents and who are we kiddin'? Were we talkin' 'bout love with our kids? Hell no! We're runnin' with the devil. We ain't talkin' bout love, no way, no how! We're talkin' 'bout beer! Woo-hoo... devil horns, devil horns.

Now honestly, I would be a bit less hard on the guys if the lead guitarist had even held a candle to my old home town guitar hero, Eddie Van Halen. But let's be clear about this. No face-melting guitar solo to be had! No gut bustin' drum solos either. And no one even attempted a David Lee Roth scream that sets your spine on fire.

Weirder still, in spite of their not living up to VH's fine reputation, these two songs were better than the rest of their own repertoire combined except for their encore hit "All Star." We did enjoy singing that one, every single word.

So we ended the night shouting to our kids: "Even shooting stars break the mold..." not really knowing what the heck that means, but hoping our kids wouldn't go home and start running with devils or stop talking 'bout love.