Recap Smoking Popes at Rathskeller

Even though Chicago’s finest lovelorn band of brothers, Smoking Popes, ripped through a vibrant set of chest-pounding power-pop for a rather tiny crowd at the Rathskeller on Friday, vocalist-guitarist Josh Caterer seemed ecstatic. That might have been because the crowd had already began boomeranging Caterer’s lyrics back to him during the solo-acoustic opener, “No More Smiles.” “No more smiles from now on / They are all gone / I’ll never understand what went wrong,” Caterer belted with his full voice as he strummed at his acoustic guitar. For the punchy follow-up, “Midnight Moon,” Caterer joined his brothers—guitarist Eli and bassist Mike—and drummer Neil Hennessy.

It’s true that the Popes have pulled pages from the sacred book of Morrissey. Hell, they even paved the way for confessional fashionite rockers like Alkaline Trio and Fall Out Boy to swing into the mainstream and save the world from rap-metal. But nothing about the Popes’ performance would have looked out of place at even the crustiest of basement shows. Josh—dressed head to toe in black—chunked away at his guitar and nailed each of his sugary vocal lines with ease. Meanwhile, Eli built a second wall of screeching guitar, hammering into his leads and occasionally pushing his voice into rich vocal harmonies in songs like “Welcome To Janesville.” The crucial rhythm section of Matt and Hennessy trudged forward tastefully as the band pulsed through an arsenal of heart-tugging, mid-tempo rockers.

“So, does Madison have a rivalry with Janesville?” Asked Josh about our neighbors to the south. Aside from a couple of incoherent howls, the crowd completely failed to respond, leading The A.V. Club to believe that no one at the show gave a shit about Janesville.

While the live set stretched back across their entire discography—including several cuts from 2008’s excellent Stay Down—the Popes also ripped through a handful of tunes from their upcoming odds-and-ends collection It’s Been A Long Day (coming out in February). “This next song is a new one about a dream I had,” stated the bald vocalist before beginning “Pasted.” He continued, “It was kind of like The Lorax—only instead of Dr. Seuss people, it was real people. The world had become so over-developed that the entire planet was covered in one solid 100-story building.” Another new tune—“It’s Been A Long Day”—was fueled by Southern-rock-sounding verses that made way for the band’s infectious pop-punk choruses.

“Unfortunately, we’re getting close to curfew here, so we can only play a couple more songs,” Josh declared as fans screamed song titles at him. After punching through “Pretty Pathetic,” the Popes hammered through a bit of MC5’s "Ramblin’ Rose" before closing with the punk blast of “Off My Mind.” After leaving the stage to massive applause from the audience, the Popes re-emerged for a lengthy take on “Brand New Hairstyle.” For whatever reason, Josh decided it would be a good idea to sing the chorus of Plain White T's “Hey There Delilah” during the bridge, to which a girl standing next to us responded, “Eww, Plain White T’s, Jesus fuck... gross.” But hey, any band that holds up as well as the Smoking Popes did on Friday has earned the right to fuck around just a little.