I Saw a Weezer Cover Band Perform in Williamsburg and Realized We Are All Rivers Cuomo

Countless pubescent millennials were raised on Mario Kart, strawberry frosted Pop Tarts, and "Dragon Ball Z." These things were, and are, fucking amazing. But for all the great memories we may have of our youth, nothing else quite matches up to Weezer's The Blue Album. Whether you were five years old or were already applying to liberal arts colleges in the Northeast when it dropped, at some point in time The Blue Album was the only thing that made sense to you. Rivers Cuomo was blessed with a specific type of nerdiness that could resonate with anyone. A football star or a band geek. A straight-A student or the kids who smoked weed in the bathroom. Rivers Cuomo just got it. He got us.

These days, the majority of us have lives that extend beyond The Blue Album and Rivers Cuomo's black rimmed glasses – lives with real jobs, bills, and possibly a girlfriend or boyfriend. Still, in those lives we're actively using the knowledge that Weezer dropped on us via The Blue Album to makes sense of things. In Brooklyn, where Weezer's aesthetic, sound, and overall temperament is very much the norm, this Blue Album-derived knowledge is even more prevalent than whatever was taught at the aforementioned liberal arts schools. Williamsburg, in particular, is a hotbed for younger, not-quite-as-nerdy Rivers Cuomo look-alikes. Ugly sweaters, black rimmed glasses (mostly without prescription lenses,) and awkwardness rule Bedford Avenue, and, in one way or another, everyone is taking their board to work.

So a Weezer cover band performing in Williamsburg right off Bedford Avenue has to be the most meta experience ever, right?

Exactly right. And for that reason I had to see The Sweater Songs perform The Blue Album. Also, I know I'm never going to see Weezer perform it, and I assume this is the next best thing.

The first thing that I did when I walked in the venue was count sweaters. Five minutes later, I lost count. There were a ton of fucking sweaters, which, to be honest, I was pretty pumped about. It definitely authenticated the experience for me: Weezer or no, this vibe was as Cuomoesque as it got. Or so I thought until I realized that, even more amazingly, in addition to the abundance of sweaters, someone was handing out fake black rimmed glasses. HANDING THEM OUT! In case you didn't have your own pair! Only in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a place so aware of its stereotype that it's wholly embraced and sold to the public, can this happen. Everyone should come at least once to experience this cultural phenomenon.

The Sweater Songs weren't set to go on until 10, which meant a shitload of people in fake Rivers Cuomo glasses and with possibly unaffected Rivers Cuomo awkwardness had to try and converse for about 30 minutes to pass the time. I saw a group of what I presumed to be financial-type people (they had their shirts tucked in at 9:30 on a Thursday night) and positioned myself next to them because I wanted to know if they were as heavily influenced by The Blue Album as I was. They totally were, or at the very least they were successfully pretending to be. One of the woman in the group said something along the lines of, "God, I'm so happy they're just going to be performing pre-Green Album stuff. I can't deal with any of that other shit." Neither can I, homegirl. Weezer: bringing writers and investment bankers together since 1994.

Another group of people who were all wearing the fake glasses were particularly stoked. In fact, they were way more excited than anyone should ever be right before seeing a cover band, especially since they seemed totally misguided. At one point they started a Pinkerton chant, albeit a very wimpy one: "PINK-ER-TON, PINK-ER-TON, PINK-ER-TON." This group was definitely the type of people who preach about how under-appreciated Pinkerton was and how it's actually much better than The Blue Album. GTFOH with your contrarian bullshit. Pinkerton is fire but I'll take The Blue Album eight days a week.

By the time The Sweater Songs hit the stage the venue was more than half full and slightly tipsy. The band came out hard going right into "My Name Is Jonas," leading me to believe they were going to run straight through album, but instead they weaved in and out of The Blue Album and well-known Pinkerton joints. What I picked up on pretty quickly was that, chanting contingent aside, most of this crowd did not fuck with Pinkerton. Most didn't even know the hook to "El Scorcho." This night was for The Blue Album, and I was totally cool with that.

What was clear after a few songs was this show was more like a large sing-a-long than a concert. Hit joints like "Undone - The Sweater Song" (duh), "Surf Wax America," and "The World Has Turned And Left Me Here" created a high school party atmosphere of drunken former suburbanites trying to sing as if they wrote the songs. That's not meant as a diss at all. That's how I want all of my cover band shows to be.

The Sweater Songs closed with the best song The Blue Album has to offer, "Say It Ain't So." A bunch of drunk people singing about battling with alcoholism is really the only appropriate way to end a Weezer cover band show, right? Afterward, people basked in the nostalgia while humming pre-Green Album Weezer, and it felt so right. This is Williamsburg, a place that has sublimated Weezer's aesthetic and turned it into its own neighborhood, a place built on the belief that people should play their silly songs in a garage, a place where Weezer cover bands host incredible sing a longs.

Brian Padilla owns too many sweaters to count. He's on Twitter - @NYCbros

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