I had the distinct pleasure to see Monique Powell perform tonight at the House of Blues in Anaheim. I was a HUGE Save Ferris fan, and the day I found out about their break up was a sad, sad day for me. What follows is a brief recap/review of the show that I saw tonight.

We got to the HOB a little late, and only were able to see the final 3 songs of the first opening band... Stereo... something. Darn, I can't remember. Anyway, I was glad to have missed the beginning of their set. The music was ok, but the lead singer sucked... and in a couple of months when his voice cracks... he will sound even worse. One song has the lyric "I am not the man I used to be," and the only thing I could think of was "you aren't a man now, when were you a man before." This was a young guy, probably 16 or 17. (Actually, he could be older, but he looked pretty young.)

While Stereosomething was playing I checked out the shirt table. Monique Powell had only one shirt and there was a sign stating that they were only going to sell 20 of them... so I of course bought one. It is pretty cool, black with a two color (blue and white) print of part of Mo's face, and the words Monique Powell under it. I would take a picture, but it is in the washer right now. Sorry. Maybe tomorrow.

The next opening band, Brightlife, came on, and they weren't too bad... I didn't buy the CD that they has available for $10, but they were handing out free samples after the show (a cd-r with the names of the songs hand written on them.)

Finally, after a seemingly endless stage change the lights dimmed and Monique Powell took the stage with her new band. Mo has some things to say about them at her website:http://www.moniquepowell.com. The drummer and the trumpet player are from Save Ferris, but everyone else is new. They start of with "Turn It Up" from the Modified album, which kind of surprised me, but when it was over Mo started talking... "This is going to be the last tour that we ever play a Save Ferris song!" Basically they are playing this small tour as a thank you to the loyal fans. In another dialogue from Mo later she stated that this little tour will last only 30 days. They played many of the old Save Ferris favorites, including my favorite, "Goodbye," and the cover of Operation Ivy, "Artificial Life". Then they played a new cover... Twisted Sisters' "We're Not Gonna Take It". I really loved the version of this song that Bif Naked did for the Ready to Rumble soundtrack, but Mo blew Bif away with her version. The whole crowd was just pumped up beyond belief. Mo talked between most of the songs to the delight of the crowd. Then they finished the set and left the stage. The crowd starts to chant "One more song! One more song!" over and over, and Mo and crew come back out. Monique starts by thanking her FOMO's (Friends Of MO) a spare drum guy, as well as her agent (I think) her lawyer, and her parents. Then she went on to thank us for giving her the best 8 years of her life. Tears are streaming down her face at this point, and she says now that she is going to play a song that she wrote shortly before Save Ferris broke up, when she knew that it was going to end. I don't know the name of the song, but it was really good. Mo was crying for most of it, which affected her singing on the slower parts of the song, but most of the crowd was crying right along with her, so I don't think we cared. I know I didn't. They finished off the show with "Come on Eileen" which really had the crowd going (biggest mosh pit of the night.)

According to Mo's website, she is playing tomorrow (Ok, tonight at this point) in Las Vegas at an event called the Ska Summit. I could easily be persuaded to go to this, but I can't find ANY information on it. It isn't in Ticketmaster. I am hoping to catch at least one more show in this little mini psuedo-Save Ferris tour, and then to catch many many shows once Monique starts her original stuff.

Hopefully some people here were into Save Ferris, and can now follow up on Monique Powell.

-CM-

I heard her on LOVELINE the other night and she seemed cool. I vaguely remember Save Ferris so maybe I'll check her out.