The Slurs, Section 8 Sideshow, MC Chris
Bubba’s Bowling Club
Wednesday, March 9

Last Wednesday, Bubba’s hosted one of their strangest shows yet — and maybe one of the biggest, with a line already around the corner half an hour before the doors opened. From rock ’n’ roll to a sideshow to a cartoon rapper, there was a bit of everything and the audience was just as varied.

MC Chris

The Slurs started off the show with “Manchild,” showing off their half punk, half rock ’n’ roll sound, which seemed to leave some of the audience confused. The rest of us, though, danced along, and The Slurs blasted through the best set that I’ve ever seen them do with the precision of listening to the CD at home and the energy that you can only get from rock ’n’ roll. About halfway through the set, they stumbled a bit during “RNRMF,” but it was only because the bassist broke a string, and by the time they started the next song, “Sonic Offspring,” the bass was ready and they were just as good as before. They finished the set with the title track off their CD, The Problem With Rock ’N’ Roll, and the bass, new string and all, got thrown across the stage — and of course, all the strings broke.

Next was the Section 8 Circus, a sideshow involving (at least) one member of Blue Monkey Sideshow, “Rash,” along with “Scratch” and, well, “Sunshine.” This is not the type of circus that you take your kids to: Aside from the not-so-clean jokes and swearing, maybe a keg hanging from someone’s ears might scar them for life. If that doesn’t do it, the bed of nails might, or maybe a faceful of broken glass. I couldn’t watch most of their show. After all the trouble to get to the front, I had to keep looking away just in case this was the one time they messed it up.

Then MC Chris came on, the voice behind the music of the cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force and apparently much more than that. He has three CDs out, with songs about everything from Star Wars to Robitussin to his voice, which is somewhat high, hence the song “I Sound Like a 10 Year Old.” His jokes were even better than the songs and it was easy to see how he could be on a cartoon with his voice and Star Wars jacket — but the songs were good enough that he wasn’t only a cartoon. Even with such a strange lineup, everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, and with something for everybody, it was hard not to.