Review of The Blanks at The Academy, Dublin on November 19th 2011

Review: Aidan Cuffe
Photos: Abraham Tarrush

Tonight is not your usual gig, I’ve been to hundreds of gigs over the past few years and almost all of them involve instruments of some description from various amazing bands that I have had the privilege to see live. I have yet to catch a big act with the promise of “No instruments, No problem”.

Tonight I caught The Blanks, or as many who are not aware yet (and now’s a great time to get acquainted with them) they are Ted’s band from the TV sitcom Scrubs. On the show known as the Worthless Peons but in real life a four piece acapella band known as The Blanks offering a comedy filled musical adventure that will have you grinning ear to ear from start to finish.

Starting the night off for us was warm up act Paddy Cullivan. You might know this man as the leader of The Camembert Quartet, the backing band from Tubridy Tonight and most recently The Late Late Show. However when he isn’t entertaining 750,000 people with his band, Paddy writes quirky humorous songs on keyboard. His clever brand of comedy was a tough sell to a filling and not quite liquidated crowd assembling but he did very well in getting those that would interact get involved in the show. From songs like “McDonalds In Baghdad” to “She Looked Like A Model And She Worked In Spar” and political retort “We Are Where We Are (But How Did We Get Here)” the crowd were engaged with sing and respond lyrics and slagging off students, oh andĀ an attempt to use the crowd for an acapella version of Journeys “Don’t Stop Believing”. Overall I thought it was a very good set to a tough crowd, a bit later with a little more juice involved Paddy definitely would have gotten a rapturous reception.

The Blanks didn’t make us wait long after Paddy’s set to come out, none of your diva build up suspense and wait till the crowd are calling for you. The Blanks came out as suddenly out of nowhere The Academy seemed to fill up quite nicely. Opening with their self-proclaimed best four songs in the world, Underdog, The Facts Of Life, Flipper and Charles In Charge they had the crowd in the palm of their hands kicking off with these cracking renditions of cheesy TV tunes.

Speed Racer followed, preceeding their attempt to create a title track for The Full Monty. All through this is a carefully crafted comedy routine orientated around the concept of The Blanks getting signed and following the perfect recipe for an amazing live show. They use one of the crowd members as an agent in the crowd watching to see if they are worth signing with hilarious references throughout.

Next up it’s the turn of a carved Halloween pumpkin to take lead vocals on their song ‘Happy Halloween’ which Sam carefully orchestrates an audio box in the pumpkin to belt out the tune. It’s about time Halloween had its own song they say. The crowd erupts as they flow into their Emmy nominated track ‘Guy Love’ which also featured in Scrubs. The crowd was all warmed up at this stage singing and clapping along in what became an amazing atmosphere. Silence of the reverent type greeted a beautiful rendition of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ but the silence wouldn’t last long as the burst straight into what they feel are the four greatest rock songs ever. Who Are You / Don’t Fear The Reaper / Lollipop / Carry On My Wayward Son all got the crowd singing and dancing again.

A two minute epic where they pretend they are an advert selling a 23 track classic gold album singing a few seconds of each song as George did the voice-over followed into ‘Craig The Crooked Christmas Tree’ and a hilarious version of Michael Sembello’s – Maniac featuring a dancing Mrs. Claus. Taking a bow and leaving the stage, there was zero chance they weren’t coming back as the crowd in loud and rapturous voice instructed the band that nothing less than one more tune would do.

They kicked off their encore with their rendition of Outkast’s Hey Ya with the crowd providing the rhythmic clapping and singing the chorus in time. Of course you couldn’t finish off any set with The Blanks without the scrubs theme tune ‘Superman’ belted out. The crowd seemed content with the offering served up but the band seemed to be having too much fun and decided to do one more for us which was a medley of Teenage Dream / Forget You / Barbara Streisand / Only Girl In The World / Cooler Than Me / Dynamite.

Overall the comedy value with staged routine, the crowd member involvement including bringing up their ‘talent spotter’ to signed the contract on stage, undoubtedly making that girls night. The fantastic medleys, retro tunes and of course their own songs too made for a memorable night even before we were informed the band would meet and greet all the fans downstairs. Truly humble and lovely guys who I hope put high quality acapella music on the map. So fun, so enjoyable, so sad it’s over, at least I have their new album ‘Worth The Weight’ to relive the memories.

The Blanks Setlist
Underdog / The Facts Of Life / Flipper / Charles in charge
Speed racer
The Full Monty
Happy Halloween
Guy Love
Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Who are you / Don’t fear the reaper / Lollipop / Carry on my wayward son
23 Classic Gold track in two minutes
Craig the crooked Christmas tree
Maniac

Encore
Outlast hey ya
Superman
Teenage Dreams / Forget You / Barbara Streisand / Only girl In The World / Cooler than me / Dynamite

The Blanks – Guy Love at The Academy, Dublin

The Blanks – 23 songs in two minutes at The Academy, Dublin

The Blanks – SupermanĀ at The Academy, Dublin