Yellowcard

Yellowcard, a Florida power-punk quintet aptly named after minor soccer offenses, are the biggest thing to happen to the violin since Henny Youngman, and from the sound of their 2004 chart topper "Ocean Avenue," they get as much mileage out of the instrument as Youngman did. Like Carrot Top at the Luxor, Yellowcard have taken up a seemingly endless residency in the Billboard rock charts alongside fellow MySpace Featured Artists Jimmy Eat World. Though their squeaky-clean profile might make their anthems of the disenfranchised a bit hard to swallow, the rest of them goes down like a capful of Pepto Bismol. Yellowcard distort their guitars the way Diesel distresses their jeans, and with the furious fiddling EQ'ed into a piercing chirp, Yellowcard are here to take some starch out of Stradivarius's death shroud. In soccer, two yellow cards gets you ejected, so one can forgive them for not rocking too terribly hard. With the Spill Canvas, Play Radio Play, Treaty of Paris. All Ages.
Mon., March 10, 5 p.m., 2008