“Punks in Vegas would really cover Aqua?”
–Aqua’s publicist’s response to my media request for the show.
Hell yea we would! Punks in Vegas has always been a fan of pop music. PiV founder Emily Matview’s first song she’d always put on a commandeered jukebox would be Mark Morrisson’s “Return of the Mack“, followed immediately by “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”. Several discussions occurred between us over many tense burgers and pizzas arguing Madonna’s best song, finally both agreeing that it’s “Open Your Heart”.
Aqua’s biggest hit “Barbie Girl” was release April 1997, the second semester of my sophomore year of high school. Around this same time, my friends were getting their driver’s licenses, first cars, and being the 90’s the crucial shitty first car accessory was a subwoofer. Obviously, we needed something with a lot of bass, and pounding beat to test the subs, and Offspring’s Ixnay on the Hombre wasn’t going to cut it. Lucky for us the perfect song had just dropped on the radio. You can’t listen to just “Barbie Girl” on repeat without going slightly insane, so we picked up Aquarium and alternated between that and Op Ivy’s Energy (which we also had just discovered) on our way to-and-from school every day. Fast forward a few years to college, and my first high-speed internet connection and I now had access to the silliest cartoon-esque music videos (“Lollipop, “Doctor Jones”, “My oh My”) that never made it to the US, which I then traded to my friend Erica for her AFI mp3 collection.
20 years later here I am, finally seeing the guilty pleasure of our daily high school commute.
According to the internet, Aqua’s first show ever in the US was this year, which seems unbelievable for a band with a song that is so well known. Given that it’s year of Barbie, there is no better time for Aqua to finally make their US debut. Early in the summer there were only a couple of one -off shows (NY and LA), but I was super excited when a full US tour was announced and that it was hitting Vegas.
After a quick intro video framing the band time traveling to the show in a Delorean, Aqua kicked off the set with the lead track off their 2nd album “Cartoon Heroes”, then launching into later-era “Back to the 80’s“ and Aquarium closer “Calling You”. For such an obviously electronic heavy group such as Aqua, I was pleasantly surprised that beyond the three core members that an additional five-piece band was helping fill out the digital backing tracks. This was extremely noticeable during the distorted guitar heavy “Halloween” and revamped “We Belong to the Sea” which with a sped-up tempo and bass now feels a lot like Kenny Loggin’s “Footloose”. Throughout the performance, a large screen behind the band played back the many high budget music videos (seriously, despite their campiness these videos could not have been cheap to make) remastered in beautiful high-definition and sometimes re-cut with extra new footage backing dancers. I have not kept up with the bands releases all that well since Aquarius, but I seemed to be alone as most the crowd were singing along to newer songs “My Mama Said”, “Dirty Little Pop Song”, and “Playmate to Jesus”. I have to admit, the newer stuff IS catchy, and I’ll have to remember to check it out.
Unsurprisingly, most the set was split between their first two albums Aquarium, and Aquarius. All the crowd favorite bangers were covered like “My oh My”, “Barbie Girl”, “Lollipop” before concluding the core set with Indiana Jones themed “Doctor Jones”. After a brief break off stage, the band returned to encore with “Aquarius” and “Roses are Red”. I was a bit surprised that “Barbie Girl” wasn’t saved as the encore song, or even the finishing song to the main set, but it was never my favorite Aqua song and given the dance party response to “Roses are Red” and “Doctor Jones”, I guess the crowd also agree. Overall, the entire show was a ton of fun, and the band is still full of energy, despite being a band for almost 30 years. It was plainly obvious they’re loving finally getting to tour the US after such a long career, and you could really feel the camaraderie watching the interaction between such longtime friends.
As someone who has listened to mostly punk rock the majority of the time since I was a teenager, I’m still not exactly sure why after 26 years I’m still drawn to the bubble-gum dance pop songs of Aqua. I guess it’s a lot of the same reason that Andrew W.K. hooked me. It’s unabashedly fun, catchy as hell, campy, full of energy, and has a high pounding infectious back beat. Would attend again.
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