Eighties style old enough to be revived and mocked
Students in the Taggart Student Center experienced a revival of ’80s-style guitar rock played by the band Final Warning on Friday night.
Called “butt rock” by many, this style of music features bands with big hair, loud singing, tight pants and mullets. Perhaps symbolizing the end of one era and the beginning of another, the words “Death before Disco” were seen on the T-shirt of one concert-goer who was also wearing a large brown mullet and big, black aviator glasses.
“It [butt rock] means reliving the hard-core metal of the ’80s,” said Jaren Fisher, a sophomore majoring in graphic design.
About 150 students attended the concert, an activity of the White Trash Club.
Most of them wearing spandex, tight Levi’s, bandannas, fake tattoos, muscle shirts, and many other clothes of 20 years ago, the excited crowd cheered during the sound check, in which the band played 30 seconds of “Paradise City” by Guns N Roses.
The band drew names out of a hat and gave away prizes, including a bag of pork rinds, a golf club, a hubcap, a 12-pack of the soft drink Tab, and “a pair of sunglasses worn by Dan ‘Slash’ Moench in the ’93 show,” said lead singer Brett Thomas, a junior majoring in psychology.
Thomas explained that he conducts the raffle for more than just comic value.
“We like to have something else going during the dead time [before the songs]” he said. “It rallies the troops of the White Trash Army.”
He also said he likes to add some variety in the concert besides just playing songs.
When Final Warning came to the stage dressed in full hard-rock apparel, they opened with “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard.
The band also covered the songs “Every Rose Has its Thorn” by Poison, “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by The Scorpions, “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi, and “Sweet child o’ Mine” by Guns ‘N’ Roses.
About halfway through the show, Thomas, dressed in a long, black wig held on by an Axl Rose-style American flag bandanna, asked the same question several times.
“Are you gonna take it?” asked Thomas.
“No,” roared the crowd several times, the volume of their voices rising each time Thomas repeated the question.
“Because we’re not gonna to take it,” said Thomas, as the crowd screamed. “We’re not gonna take it anymore.”
Final Warning then shot into “We’re Not Gonna Take it” by Twisted Sister, and the throng erupted into shouting and applause.
The cover went over so well that eventually the band played it again as an encore.
Some students admitted that they didn’t grow up listening to butt-rock because they were born in the ’80s.
“We’re adopted children of the ’80s,” said freshman Alex Serra, a computer science major.
Serra sported a painted-on goatee and a long, blond mullet.
Cory Fisher, a junior majoring in animal science, also wore a mullet, this one brown and under a cowboy hat.
“We’re so ingrained with white-trash genes that our hair grows like this,” Fisher said.
The phrases ‘white trash’ and ‘butt-rock’ conjure up many images in the minds of the concert attendants.
“[It means] tight, acid-washed jeans,” said Lindsey Thomson, a sophomore in journalism.
Brianna Malan, a sophomore majoring in dental hygiene, said, “Stomach shirts with your underwear hanging out.”
The members of the band themselves have opinions on the definition of butt rock.
“It’s moonin’ cars, kissin’ girls, and shredded jeans,” Thomas said.
Bass guitarist Nate Julian, who was wearing a skin-tight leopard-skin belly shirt and Daisy Duke-style black shorts with the pockets showing, added his views on butt rock.
“It’s turnin’ your Levi’s into shorts,” he said.
Like the various clothes worn by the concert-goers, the songs themselves were just as varied, from “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd to “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC.
Thomas said the band only plays ten songs, but he plans to add more to the repertoire.
Also, Final Warning doesn’t have the same members each time.
“We’ve never had the same group play twice,” Thomas said.
He said Final Warning was started by him and two guys who graduated last year. The second-oldest remaining band member is Dan Moench, who just graduated from USU this spring in business administration. He is the lead guitarist, and he dressed like Slash from Guns ‘N’ Roses.
“I started playing the guitar because of Slash,” Moench said, sporting a thick black curly-haired wig and a black top hat.
Friday night, Doug Green, a freshman in biology, played the drums. Chris Norris, a junior in landscape architecture, played the rhythm guitar. This was his first time performing with the band. Another rhythm guitarist, Dave Fallows, a senior in accounting, also played in his first gig with Final Warning on Friday night.
Fallows said he was excited when he found out what type of music he would be playing.
“I could barely contain my euphoria,” Fallows said. “I was raised on [butt rock.]”
He said he hopes to add “18 and Life” by Skid Row and more AC/DC songs to the band’s list.
Nate Julian, the bass guitarist, has been with Final Warning since spring 2003. He is a senior in public relations.
Thomas said Final Warning enjoys playing in the TSC Sunburst Lounge; it’s the only place they’ve played on campus.
“It costs $100 to rent it out,” Thomas said. “We raise money. We go around and get donations.”
But the band has some loftier goals.
“We’re hoping some members of the Howl [were at the concert],” Thomas said. “We already got the outfits.”
He said his goal was for the band to play at the Halloween Howl put on by the Student Activity Board at the end of October. A major plus, he said, was that they wear costumes on stage and many of the fans do, too.
Thomas said his main reason for starting the White Trash Club was so that Final Warning could play on campus.
“I’ve been doing these concerts for three years,” Thomas said. “I just barely attended the CSCO [Council of Student Clubs and Organizations] meeting for the first time.”
His main goal is ultimately to put on a good time for everyone.
“We just want to bring as many people out of this town as we can and celebrate butt rock,” Thomas said.
-marklaroc@cc.usu.edu
Ian whipple crowd surfs during the butt-rock concert Friday. Most of the students who attended dressed in ‘80s style clothing, including acid-white jeans, belly-showing shirts, cut-off Levi’s, rolled-up jeans and layered socks, among other major fashion no-nos of today. Mullets were plentiful. (Photos by Ryan Talbot)