I’ve never been a huge Mad Caddies fan. Keep It Going was pretty good. I like some of their older stuff. But 2014’s Dirty Rice felt to me like a combination of Less Than Jake and Ben Folds. To pull an image from an old episode of Full House, that combination, to me, is like combining Velveeta and pudding: I like them each on their own, but when you combine the two they’re kind of disgusting. So, with the concert coming up, and me already committed to doing the review, as I tried to relisten to Dirty Rice, I asked one my fellow reviewers here at Punk News “What have I done? I don’t even like this band?” It was an exaggeration, but he assured me that Mad Caddies are a good show and that I would enjoy it. I decided to take his word for it.

The opening bands were both local Denver acts. The first band, The Short Bus Rejects, I have to give some kudos to, as they ended their set with a cover of “Dammit” by Blink-182, leaving a room full of Mad Caddies fans in the awkward position of trying to decide if they’re willing to admit to their friends that they know the words t that song. Whether you admit it or not, everyone knows the words to that song. The band that followed them, The Dendrites, surprised the hell out of me. A combination of ska, jazz, and what sounded like a little bit of salsa, the Dendrites put on a completely instrumental set that had the audience’s full attention. I’ve never seen a ska band hold a jam session before, but that’s what it felt like I was watching, with the “breaks” between songs feeling more like intermissions. That is a band I am certainly going to keep an eye on.

The first thing I noticed when the Mad Caddies took the stage was that lead singer Chuck Robertson looks like he’s in the wrong band. He looks like he should be fronting a band that’s some ungodly combination of Creed and Rascal Flats. That, or he looks like a supporting character from a Fast and the Furious movie whose only line in the whole film is “Dude!“ But as soon as he started performing, I understood why the Mad Caddies are known for their shows, because every single song they do is better live than it is on the album.

Even some of the songs that I wasn’t crazy about, like “Brand New Scar,” came alive in a way that I never felt on the album. I found myself singing along to songs I never liked that much on the album. Chuck Robertson is charismatic and has a stage presence that cannot be escaped, despite looking like an Abercrombie and Fitch ad from the early 2000’s, and the audience is drawn into his enthusiasm for his own music. Personally, I think that the Mad Caddies would benefit from pulling an MC5 and putting out their music as live albums instead of recording in the studio, where some of their fare and showmanship is lost.