If only for a second, every band should get to be the greatest band in the world. And when the Tropicals played "It's a Wild Life" at the Bryant-Lake Bowl on one charmed evening about a year ago, they were that, and then some. Some what? you ask. Well, some strange stuff that makes thee trite ol' Paul 'n' Artie sentiments seem fresh. "It's a wild life/Whatcha gonna do with it?" Craig Wright sang against a spare, sweet melody that turned his impossible ethical question into the stuff of a great children's song--think "Yellow Submarine." Wright and guitar-strumming partner Peter Lawton were believers: in melody for melody's sake; in the transporting power of lyrics about butterflies and city streets; in good-natured pretension. And though they recently broke up, for a year or so there wasn't a better band around at setting page poetry to pop tunes. They never gave a damn about the alt-rock cynics who might have pegged them for wimps: "I'm just more interested in butterflies than Nine Inch Nails," Wright told CP a while back. At their best they made us wish we were too.