Some people are so lucky without fully realizing it until years after the fact. One such person is Madison Littlefoot. She won a competition on San Diego radio station 91X FM to have a band play at her quinceañera on July 15 of last year. What she didn’t know when she won was that the band in question was none other than Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. Needless to say, neither Madison nor her friends or family knew that they were in the company of punk rock’s premiere cover band/trolls, and the atmosphere was one of bewilderment and awkward confusion.
Which was precisely the effect that the band—at this event comprised of Spike Slawson, CJ Ramone, Swami John Reis, Andrew “Pinch,” and Joey Cape—had intended. Even over audio that comes across perfectly. But there was one moment where the crowd really got into what they were watching, which was the band’s rather splendid reinterpretation of “Good 4 U,” which deconstructs and rebuilds the Olivia Rodrigo song to create something entirely postmodern and, frankly, awesome. “Given that our intended audience was a bunch of 15-year-olds,” says Slawson, “we were duty-bound to get a song together from the current millennium. After some serious introspection and marathon late night modern-pop listening sessions, we came to the conclusion that ‘Good 4 U’ was the song that most closely aligned with our values, principles, and aesthetics.”
You can listen to the cover below (don’t worry—the event’s DJ played all the songs that Madison and her friends wanted to hear the way they wanted to hear them after the set). The band will be touring through July (presumably at more conventional venues), though Jake Kiley from Strung Out will be handling guitar duties rather than Joey Cape. You can also pre-order the full live performance Blow It…at Madison’s Quinceañera here before it arrives June 14.
