Your Underdog Show of the Week: A Weezer Tribute at Baby’s All Right
I have a distinct memory of sitting on the screened-in porch of my childhood home, redirecting my attention from long-division math homework to a song that came on my red Sony Walkman (this red Sony Walkman). It was “My Name Is Jonas,” and I felt like my chest was going to burst. Then, again, a few years later standing in front of a Sony boom box (I upgraded) in my butter-yellow bedroom, hearing the right-hook, left-jab opening lines of “El Scorcho” for the first time. If I starred in a movie called Girlhood filmed over 12 years, these would be the pivotal scenes.
It’s convenient, then, all these Weezer tribute shows that pop up, pretending that the years 1997-2013 have evaporated from the time-space continuum and assuring a very specific demographic of 20-and-30-somethings that they were not alone in screened-in porches and butter-yellow bedrooms being sucker-punched by early Weezer albums. Tonight’s adaptation at Williamsburg hot spot Baby’s All Right is perhaps the first to concur with the band’s supposed stab at inverting the years themselves, as various press materials for their forthcoming album, Everything Will Be Alright in the End, are quick to point out.
In case they falter in resisting to dress like VHS super villains, though, members from the local garage-rock contingency — including a mix from Beverly, Future Punx, Truthers, Vivian Girls and Moon Dudes — will uphold Weezer’s early legacy, rotating through cuts from The Blue Album, Pinkerton and various B-sides tonight. (Please play “Jamie.”) There’s no cover, doors open at 11am, and music starts at midnight, just as the 1996 version of Rivers probably wouldn’t want it. I’m in.
Follow Lauren Beck on Twitter @heylaurenbeck.