Toronto – Any band that has their own theme song is alright by me. These were my first thoughts as I watched Everyone Was In The French Resitance … Now! (EWITFRN) open their set with their self titled theme song. Think about it: The Monkees, Black Sabbath … um … Big Country? All had theme songs, which made them that much better. Ok, maybe not so much with Big Country, but you get my drift. I also love answer songs, and EWITFRN brought the answer songs coming all night long. “There is a theme to this band, and it’s not just me talking about other shows we’ve done,” said frontman Eddie Argos by way of introduction. The basic theme is this: Argos writes songs in response to any previously written song that has pissed him off in some way. Even songs by the Archies that no one else has heard of and that aren’t even on The Archies’ Greatest Hits (That’s right, I own The Archies’ Greatest Hits). He was quick to point out that they were not just Jon Bovi from SNL, writing the opposite of each chosen song … although their answer to Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, it’s Alright” is called “Do Think Twice, It’s Not Alright,” so sometimes they’re an opposite band. But that’s OK because that song was exellent and hilarious, even incorporating elements of U2’s “With Or Without You” at the end.
Speaking of hilarious, Argos is one of the funniest, most engaging frontmen I have seen in a while. His witty, self-deprecating banter is a natural extension of his songwriting. Sample banter: “Bob Dylan’s very good at break ups, I’m not. That’s the only difference between us. We’re even the same age physically.” He also went on about how he appreciates being in Canada because we understand his references to chip shops and later claimed that Avril Lavigne is stalking him. That latter comment segued into “G.I.R.L.F.R.E.N.”, their answer to Lavigne’s “Girlfirend,” which they then followed with a cover of The Rubinoos’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend.” (The Rubinoos also did the awesome title track from the Revenge Of The Nerds soundtrack. Sadly, EWITFRN did not cover this)
As I said, the songs were great, Argos’ stage banter was top notch, and the band was pretty sharply dressed to boot. So why was the venue half empty? I noticed sparse attendance at the last Art Brut show at Lee’s Palace and Ricky reported on a similar situation at SXSW. So why are you sleeping on this, people? Get with the Eddie Argos program … now!
