How many times have you heard someone say, "I had a religious experience" at the _____ concert? It could be the most overused and clichéd way of praising a performance. Well, that description would do Andrew W.K. a disservice because religion brings to mind empty ritual and false hope. An Andrew W.K. concert is meaningful and real: not plagued with fear, but rather a celebration of life.

I was like anyone else who came to the show, intrigued by the commotion that his debut album, I Get Wet, had caused. I had gone out and bought the album after seeing the infectious video for the first single, "Party Hard," only to see that the other tracks on the album consisted of standards with names like "It's Time to Party," "Party Til You Puke," and "Fun Night." When I listened to the album my first reaction was that it sounded like music made for a beer commercial. Low and behold, the next night while watching a basketball game I find that Andrew W.K.'s music is, in fact, being used to sell Coors. This wasn't a good sign. Nevertheless, I was open to the experience and with it being in a small club on a Tuesday night and with $13 tickets, I figured I had nothing to lose.

Opening up for Andrew W.K. were Seattle's Alien Crime Syndicate and New York City punks the Casualties. They shared the same stage on the same night, but they may as well have been different species in a different universe. The only carry over was that the pit was comprised with some atypical punks wearing their hair in neatly formed purple spiked Mohawks. There was something in the air as the "A.W.K." backdrop was revealed that suggested, no, made it CLEAR that this wasn't going to be another mere concert. This was going to be IMPORTANT. The pit started to chant, "Party! Party!" and pretty soon, without formal introduction or a contrived entrance, Andrew W.K. was shaking hands with the audience while his band set up their instruments.

Now, I could go over the set list and rehash lyrics that underline what Andrew W.K. is all about. I won't. I will say that his live show is more guitar heavy than his album, which uses keyboards almost to its detriment. So, for a more straightforward rocking night the keyboards were put aside, the guitars blasted, and the fists flew in the air accordingly. His band is made up of a slight drummer hidden behind his huge set, three guitarists, and a bass player. The four axe-men represent forgotten archetypes of rock. The lead guitarist is what Kiss' Paul Stanley would look like if he grew a beard and wore Hawaiian shirts and basketball shorts. The other two guitarists look like, respectively, an outcast from Megadeth and a Russian immigrant who can't decide if he wants to be militaristic or a rockabilly. But it was the bass player who was the real prize. He had a cue ball head, was wearing a wife-beater and Docs, and had massive lamb chop sideburns. If it weren't for his stumbling fee-fie-foe saunter and his Popeye facial expressions one would think he was in a neo-Nazi punk band. Oi! As always, Andrew W.K. was wearing his dirty white T-shirt, dirty white jeans, and dirty white sneakers. A sort of faulted purity, much like Christ.

His set was fast and his grunts and screams were on time. His energy and frenetic kicks, thrusts, and jumps were like watching an uncoordinated kid in his bedroom doing his best impersonation of David Lee Roth. But it wasn't about being suave or acrobatic. It was about letting go. Not only letting go of inhibitions, but the personae building that has dominated pop front men, teetering between Iggy Pop's self-destruction and Mick Jagger's self-deification. Andrew would pull kids up onto the stage with him and, unlike anyone else I've ever seen, his joy to share the stage with them wasn't phony or self-conscious, it was real. During the climax of "Party Hard" a short, shirtless punk was cavorting about the stage. Andrew lifted him onto his shoulder and have him a piggyback ride as they pumped their fists in unison. Andrew had a genuine, impenetrable smile that stayed with him from the moment he hit stage to the moment he left. He clapped his hands after each song, not so much to motivate the crowd, but more to applaud them. It was a shared experience and he knew it. His in between song banter drifted from the mundane ("Are you ready to party?" "How're you doing Mile High City?"), to the awkwardly philosophical ("This isn't just us up here. It's all of us. You. Us. This is our band."). But when he made note that, "As it stands right now, things are pretty darn good" I felt ashamed of my pessimism. I felt guilty for spending so many brooding nights alone listening to sub-par Morrissey albums. Things were pretty darn good and it was high time I recognize it. It was time that I let my intellectual guard down and realize that having a good time is okay. It's more than okay. It's essential.

Andrew W.K. is a populist, but he doesn't pander. You can take his message, which is basic and loving, and do what you want with it. There are no rules to his party philosophy, which is far more intricate than getting drunk and screaming (even if that's all it seems to be on the surface). People are responsible for their own happiness and he is simply a conduit of that. Every single person at the show that night had a smile plastered on their face throughout his entire set. Even the typical Denver yuppies who use concerts as a backdrop to discuss yuppie banalities (dinner parties, condos, pure-bred dogs, et cetera) had moved to the front after the first few songs and left their drinks at the bar. No one wanted to miss the experience. Crowd surfers were loved and cared for by the audience, and those who got up the nerve to climb on stage never overstayed their welcome. The set was fast and furious and when it was over it was actually over. There was no prefabricated encore in which the audience were left standing in the theater with the house lights left off, having nothing better to do with themselves but clap and scream. It was, in short, the perfect rock show.

This leads me to the following question. What is the purpose of religion and why don't we simply look to outlets like Andrew W.K. at a time when organized religion is failing and embarrassing us? The show served the purpose of raising spirits, drowning sorrow, and created a feeling of kinship between audience members. What's more, Andrew W.K. is a realperson and not a long dead prophet or imagined being living in the clouds and shouting out demands and warnings. Professor X from the early '90s rap ensemble X-Clan said, "People ask me, 'What is God?' And when I tell them God is love, their reaction is quite mortal." Andrew W.K. is the embodiment of love and he is quite mortal. Really, we don't need God. We need more people putting on shows like Andrew W.K.

In the days following the show life dealt me the usual blows of bad news, but my newfound optimism was all encompassing. A friend attempts suicide? No problem. She's still alive and can get the help she needs. If that had happened before the show, I would've been much more prone to locking myself in my apartment and sulking. What good does that do? I'm not saying that my introverted ways are a thing of the past. It was just a concert. But for a brief moment in time I felt as if life was worth all of the suffering and pain. And really, it is.

-Keith Corson