Wrong Way does time at the Bluebird

My learning ground for concert etiquette started at a park pavilion my freshman year of high school. I believed I had an appreciation for music before this particular show, but my first real piece of knowledge came this fateful February night as dozens of little high schoolers packed into a shoddy venue in suburbia, Fort Wayne.\nWhat I learned: the key to a good show is the energy the crowd and the band bring to the plate.\nWrong Way, a Sublime tribute band out of Athens, Ga., brought all the energy needed and then some to the Bluebird Saturday night, and the crowd was there to push them along the whole way.\n“On any given night the crowd makes it or breaks it,” lead singer Mike Sparrow said after the show. “If the crowd’s not involved, there’s no way to win them over.”\nAfter a late start (the band’s bus broke down en route to Bloomington), all five members brought their interpretation of a real live Sublime show to the stage to a crowded venue. \nWith finals for the first summer session approaching and the heat of summer recently kicking in, the mellow reggae sounds of songs like “Bad Fish” and “Santeria” were just what I and apparently many others in Bloomington needed. To make a lame Dane Cook reference, I just wanted to dance Saturday night.\nAnd dancing there was. I’m not sure a single person was able to stand still in the audience, especially while watching Sparrow jump around on stage, infected with energy, as his T-shirt slowly faded from dry to slightly damp with sweat to soaked halfway down to no longer on his body. \nIn addition to covering original Sublime tracks, the band also covered songs from the same vein and influence of the early ’90s ska-punk band in order to make the show more like an actual Sublime concert would have been before lead singer Bradley Nowell died of heroin overdose in 1996. 311’s “Amber” and Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” both made an appearance Saturday night. \n“We try to do Sublime justice,” drummer Brady Smith said.\nAnd they did just that. I’ll admit I am not a Sublime expert, but the songs I do know, I know well. The band’s real test for me came when they played “Date Rape” (let me just say it has little to do with subject matter, but this song has been a longstanding favorite. It’s just so darn catchy). \nI know this song like the back of my hand. Countless summer road trips in my Jeep with the top off and friends piled into the back have included blasting this song and singing along to every word, and Wrong Way nailed it. I was sweating from what I would call dancing (others might call it violent spasms, but that’s beside the point) and my voice was on the verge of going hoarse from yelling along. \nThis kind of familiarity with Sublime’s music is what drives the band to continue covering their songs. \n“It makes it easy to get the crowd involved,” Sparrow said. “They have so many fans.”\nThese fans in cooperation with the intense energy brought by this cover band made for an exhausting concert.\nAnd that’s how a good show should be.