What’s great about pop-punk is it’s over quick and you don’t have to know music theory to write it.
Wednesday night’s El-Rocko show started as a two-band pop-punk show celebrating the reunion of Jeff Two-Names—a reunion no one asked for—after two of their members left Savannah for good, forever, because they got better jobs.
Then two more bands, Sins of Godless Men and Cloudsoup were added, but they aren’t pop-punk, because Savannah can only have two pop-punk bands at a time. It’s a rule.
If the roof had collapsed and killed everyone in El-Rocko on Wednesday, pop-punk music would have ceased to exist in Savannah. Literally all 10 Savannahians who love, write and play pop-punk were there. Thankfully, nothing tragic happened. Enough tragic shit has already happened, I suppose. It’s time for fun. And Wednesday was incredible fun.
A return of Sins of Godless Men to the live stage delighted their one fan. Hard not to love loud rock ‘n’ roll and be completely infected by bassist Jeremiah Stuard’s on-stage moves. Plus, Sins has guitar/bass riffs for days and superb breakdowns held down by one of the best drummers in the entire southeast. (I am that fan).
Sandwiched between the headlining Christian dads (the drummer is a Reverend of some renown) and the brazen atheists, was the debut of a brand new pop-punk band. The Manarovs consists of former members of Jeff Two-Names, including Jeff himself, and the long-forgotten, thankfully short-lived Ramages.
Jeff blazed through some killer pop-punk solos over songs about space or something. It’s a narrative-writing band. Similar to most of The Lillingtons’ albums and that one Coheed and Cambria album. Hopefully there will be a picture book with the album that’s coming out soon.
After the first two songs, Jeff proclaimed, correctly, “If you don’t like those two, you won’t like the next seven.”
Jeff Two-Names, a band comprised of two real-life dads, set a new world record on Wednesday.
Several members of the Guinness World Record Company were on-hand to ensure accuracy, including the world-renowned Professor Phil and his Zenith Defy Lab time piece. They played three or four songs in 2 minutes and 14 seconds to the second. No one will debate that in court.
Then the in-famous Gilbert ‘Gil’ Cruz joined the Dad’s on vocals for some Drop Kick Murphys and Bouncing Souls tracks. At this point, the show turned very interactive as members of other bands, local producers, and recording engineers, jumped on stage to help with vocals. So everyone in the crowd felt comfortable singing along. Even Gil!
There was no half-circle of respect around the front of the stage at this show. Everyone was up front and center. Two dudes formed their own private mosh pit in the corner and seemed very happy about it.
The good thing about pop-punk is it’s over quick and the good thing about Dad’s playing pop-punk is the show will be done by 11 p.m. on a school night.
And the best thing about friends moving away is when they come back.
Still begs the question, who starts a pop-punk band in their 30s?
Cloudsoup 
Sins Of Godless Men 
The Manorovs 
Jeff Two-Names and The Born Agains 
