Weezer Cruise 2: Cry Me A Rivers

Some of you may recall that a couple of years back I penned an urgent missive from the first Weezer cruise which departed from Miami for four beer-and-bands-soaked nights in the Caribbean, never to return. Well the ship and our physical selves returned eventually, but many brain cells were lost at sea, never to be seen again. It was ludicrous amounts of fun, an experience that we rued would surely never be repeated.

Hence when they announced a second Weezer cruise – this time venturing to the Bahamas – it was a no-brainer for myself and my far-better-half Michelle to get back on the horse (or boat in this instance), so we signed up immediately.

After a couple of days in Orlando and a couple in Jacksonville the day of deportation arrived and we headed via cab to the Jacksonville port. For the last week or so in the States news reports had been dominated by the unseasonal cold snap that had hit much of the country, so not only was it freezing here in Florida but we quickly learnt that heaps of cruisers – including two of our friends – had been unable to make the ship in time because of airport closures and the like.

Nonetheless once we clear immigration – this port is quite desolate, nowhere near as flash as the one in Miami – we are aboard the Carnival Fascination and about to head off for this most nautical of adventures. The boat is similar in layout to the last one (Carnival Destiny) but a little smaller, but the same hordes of band t-shirt-toting indie kids are already into the full swing of things by the time we hit the Lido Deck and get into our first cocktails.

Cool music is blasting from the speakers and eccentric people are everywhere in strange but fascinating costumes and attire, then right on 4pm the members of Weezer appear on the stage (minus drummer Pat who's not on board yet apparently, we're still in port) to kickstart proceedings and introduce the first band. Rivers Cuomo is once again dressed in customised captain's attire and looks laidback, and soon enough we're being blasted by Chicago five-piece The Orwells.

They kick off with the melodic garage of Other Voices, the awesomely charismatic, shaggy-haired frontman Mario Cuomo (relation to Rivers one wonders?) singing between the fake palm trees which adorn the stage. The band are tight and ferocious and they have a bank of cool songs, tracks like Dirty Sheets and the vaguely disturbing Halloween All Year – which segues into a brilliantly catchy yet ragged blast of Build Me Up Buttercup – getting the delighted punters moving early.

It's punchy rock with heaps of grit coating the prolific hooks, and during In My Bed we get the tour's first casualty as a smashed girl in a nice red dress wades drunkenly into the hot tub in front of the stage and settles amidst the surprised bathers – we still haven't left the dock but such debauchery seems entirely appropriate.

At times they seem like a distant cousin of Murder City Devils, but when they power into an awesome cover of Black Lips' Not A Problem their influence becomes apparent as well. By the time they kick into Mallrats (La La La) the red dress girl is now going ballistic dancing around the spa and pneumonia is a legitimate concern, and then Mario takes a tumble off the stage and looks sheepish as he climbs back up, the band ending a great set with a killer Blood Bubbles. A brilliant start to the musical component of our voyage.

The required boat safety drill is a lot more drunken and irreverent than I remember last time – not a bad thing – and we then head to the smaller Casino Stage to see Caveman, a couple of whom we'd met briefly at our hotel this morning. The Brooklyn six-piece ply a textured blend of indie rock with drum kits aplenty, the frontman starting behind a lone snare before reverting to guitar – there's essentially a drummer and two percussionists, but only one playing at most given times.

The weird dynamic works well and there's a dreamy tint to songs like Shut You Down, even as they struggle slightly with the mix on the makeshift stage. Despite their primitive band name the group is sartorially elegant, the upbeat and jaunty My Time almost like The Shins at their most rough and tumble (although you kinda get the impression they'd hate that comparison).  Where's The Time is cruisy but angsty and they get a tribal feel when the triple drums kick in, December 28th proving a latter-end highlight of a solid showcase.

We head to the more ornate two-tiered Palace Lounge to see a Weezer-offshoot in the form of Scott & Rivers, the Japanese language project formed by the ever-nerdy Rivers and Scott Murphy from Allister. They only joined forces a few years back and played their first public show at the very tailend of 2012, but the four-piece seem tight and poppy and songs like Break Free and Freakin' Love My Life are characterised by Japanese verses and English choruses – sorta something for everyone.

The Japanese girl drummer keeps cool time and they're fun to watch even though we have no frame of reference for what we're seeing, songs like Splash and their first single Homely Girl catchy enough to entertain nonetheless. This lack of recognition is addressed when they burst into a Japanese version of Weezer fave Buddy Holly, which is no doubt as random in real life as it sounds on paper. A fun diversion.

We adjourn to dinner with some new friends – as on all cruises the food aspect of proceedings is included in the price, so we eat like kings (and queens) all trip. This year we're introduced to the drink special, where if you sign up for $50 a day – must be every day – you drink alcohol from the myriad bars for free, to a maximum of 15 drinks per person per day. Given that this not only covers beers but all the ludicrous cocktails they have on offer – including potent concoctions like Long Island Iced Teas – this deal is more like a physical challenge than a cost-saving device.

Like a typical Aussie my first thoughts turn to potential ways of rorting the system – even though I have no intention of doing so, or even need to do so, it's still the go-to concern – proving in the process just why something like this could never work at home.

We catch the last few songs of The Cribs in the dingy Puttin' On The Ritz lounge, and then adjourn to the Atrium for Weezer's Birthday Party, celebrating twenty years since the launch of their amazing self-titled debut (the Blue Album to all those boffins out there). Free drinks are being handed out liberally on platters and before long things are getting pretty messy, so we return to our stately cabin and bid farewell to the first night of partying and rock'n'roll.

DAY TWO

We shower, eat breakfast and hit the Lido Deck to await our arrival at Freeport, Bahamas for what is meant to be the day of activities and excursions – we're meant to be swimming with dolphins in a gorgeous lagoon which, as an avid diver and marine lover, excites me no end.

We have a couple of drinks in the sun to bide our time until arrival – I'm reading a Chuck Klosterman book called Eat The Dinosaur which suddenly starts dissecting the irony levels of Rivers and how Weezer's songs are basically literal treatises, which completely freaks me out because the book's not ostensibly about music – and then watch a bit of the 24-hour Weezer TV channel in the cabin, which is super-fun even if it is super-geeky.

The boat is late to the destination because we left late yesterday to allow people delayed by the storm to make the trip, and soon we're given the sad news over the loud speakers that we're going to be so late that basically all activities – including the dolphin swims – have been cancelled because we won't have time in port to complete them before we need to set off again. Bummer.

Chins up, we head off the boat and take taxis to the city of Port Lucaya, which has a casino and then basically a million shops selling tourist junk. We walk down the beach and have a stroll on the beach – despite the weather having turned for the better it's getting late and we opt for a stroll in the water rather than a swim.

A tout offers us t-shirts really loudly and “doobies” really softly under his breath, but we don't take him up on the offer because (a) he's standing right near a massive police station, and (b) drugs are bad, mkay. We have delicious pina coladas at a beachside hut and then have to endure the fucking Pina Colada Song in a cruel loop in our heads for the next 36 hours.

We get a limo for a taxi to take us the 20 minutes back to the boat – by fluke not design, and nowhere near as cool as it sounds; the thing is ancient and breaks down about five times on the way back (the driver muttering about the fuel pump as he spays stuff on the engine in a futile attempt to start it up) and eventually we're saved by a van who takes us the rest of the way with a weird, auto-tuned reggae cover of The Gambler which the driver keeps replaying because we made the heinous error of singing along with the chorus first time. Rookie mistake.

Back on the boat we discover the personally autographed Weezer Valentines Day cards that they've left in our cabins, then opt for some comedy and head back to the Palace Lounge. Emerging comic Jacon Sirof opens proceedings with some observational stuff about the trip, before moving on to his more practiced routines – he's pretty caustic but I like his style, and he's certainly not afraid to bush buttons nor boundaries.

He soon introduces Adam Devine – best known as being “the short one from Workaholics” – who goes through a quirky and self-deprecating routine, every joke ending with a chuckle and either “that's dumb” or “that's so stupid”.  He's wearing a horrible tie-dyed shirt that he clearly brought at the markets for this very reason, and basically he's harmless and endearing.

Soon enough headliner Doug Benson is subbed into the fray and you can immediately tell while he's on last, his hilarious brand of stoner humour a step above his predecessors. He offers more jokes about the boat and some of the more odd passengers, but it's all in good fun and he's equally scathing on himself and his own foibles. It's great having a good laugh at sea, and this trio totally bring the jollies.

We wander off for dinner in the stately dining room – it's still weird being served by tuxedo-clad waiters and treated like somebodies when dressed like the nobodies we are – and then it's back to the Palace Lounge for our designated on-board Weezer show (they play an A show and a B show, and everyone is given a ticket for one or the other).

We find our booth off to the right on the ground floor – about 25m from stage centre – and are soon joined by two guys in amazing Dumb & Dumber orange and powder blue tuxedos, who look absolutely amazing. Waiters ply us with drinks – we just flash our cards and they bring them to you – and soon the set begins as the four band members take their places in front of a massive electric =W= band logo and kick into El Scorcho B-Side You Gave Your Love To Me Softly.

Appropriately for Valentine's Day there's a whole lot of love in the room and the crowd goes nuts seeing their heroes in the flesh, as you'd expect on such an occasion. Rivers soon explains that their set is going to be taken entirely from passengers requests that were to be submitted online prior to embarking – as with most democratic situations I utilised my right to not participate (i.e. I forgot) – and they start from the bottom and build towards the most requested, meaning that this set is an awesome mix of obvious faves and much-loved rarities, a fascinating exercise unto itself.

My Name Is Jonas and Holiday both get ecstatic reactions and massive pillars of smoke from the sides of the stage quite appropriately introduce Hash Pipe, before they throw an array of ridiculous rock shapes during Tired Of Sex. The band are clearly having as much fun as their delighted acolytes, Rivers introducing the band – who each get to sing a line – during Pork And Beans, before they play Miss Sweeney (from the deluxe version of the Red Album) for the first time ever live, in all its complicated glory; cool!

They throw glow sticks into the crowd and then pull out three crowd members to help sing In The Garage – one of them, a huge guy with a beard, crosses the stage to take a selfie with Rivers which probably says something about society, although it's cool in this instance (but never again) – then go on to obscurity Mykel And Carli and the evergreen The Good Life. Rivers says “it's a roll of the dice when you ask the audience to steer the ship” and then his adorable young daughter Mia comes on to plonk keys during Perfect Situation, before running off as they introduce the crazily bombastic The Greatest Man That Ever Lived.

Across The Sea elicits mass sing-alongs, before they kick beach balls into the crowd to signify Island In The Sun and continue with much-loved b-side Jamie and my personal fave, Say It Ain't So. The true Weezer geeks in attendance – roughly half the crowd – lose their shit at the intro to Susanne, and then they end the incredible 90-minute set with Only In Dreams, which – while a crazy good song – seems a strange choice to be most requested.

Soon, however, our heroes return and Rivers informs us that it was in fact a tie for first and they rip into adulated Pinkerton classic El Scorcho, prompting a stage invasion which seems somehow scripted as only what Aussie Crawl would describe as “beautiful people” end up sharing the limelight.

Rivers gives these dancing intruders a clap and then introduces the first ever airing of a brand new song from their upcoming record; entitled Back To The Shack, it's heavily self-referential, and as well as digging heavily at reality shows like Idol seems to be a harbinger for a return to the Weezer of old, with lyrics like, “kick in the door, more hardcore, rocking out like it's '94” and “back to the strat with the lightning strap” – it's irreverent, hooky and has big singalong choruses – not quite a return to the sound of old, but  a worthwhile stab.

With that we're exhausted and call it a night – plenty more adventures to come in the next couple of days!