Sadly one of the most successful American sitcoms of all time was cancelled this year, but its spirit still lives on. “Scrubs” ran for nine series but was cancelled due to poor ratings after Zach Braff left the show, but this didn’t stop hundreds of fans heading over to Walkabout last night for a special treat.
Named in “Scrubs” as the Worthless Peons, real-life a capella quartet The Blanks are on their debut tour of the UK. Featuring Sam Lloyd who plays the hapless lawyer Ted in the show, there was a definite Scrubs fanbase in the crowd.
Due to over-anticipation and a number of different start times being mentioned on the internet, the club was packed almost two hours before The Blanks took to the stage.
The resident DJ did his best to try and warm up the agitated crowd, but eventually the songs began to repeat. A highlight however, was during Kings Of Leon’s “Sex On Fire”, as the DJ lowered the volume for the crowd to sing-along but was instead greeted by boos and chants of “We want Ted!”.
Eventually 11pm rolled round and The Blanks took to the stage to an almighty cheer. Starting with the theme from the animated series “Underdog”, The Blanks had definitely found their niche.
Despite only playing for just over half an hour, The Blanks managed to fit in a large number of songs, due to their penchant for medleys. Singing medleys of the four best songs ever written and the best four rock songs in rock, their a capella style added a whole new dimension to some well-known classics.
It’s not often you see a band manage to pull off a capella versions of Kanas’ “Carry On My Wayward Son”, the theme tune to “Flipper”, the theme tune to “Charles In Charge” and “Lollipop” by Chordettes.
The first of three big singalongs came from their cover of Lazlo Bane’s “Superman”, aka the Scrubs theme tune. Managing to create the popular track without any instruments was very impressive, it was especially entertaining as the rest of The Blanks held Sam Lloyd’s nose to create Bane’s distinctive voice.
However, possibly one of the biggest highlights was their cover of “She’s a Maniac” by Hall & Oates. Introducing it as a Christmas song, the band wore Santa hats and brought on a toy woman. Once the chorus kicked in the toy sprung into life and started dancing to the sound of Walkabout all singing “She’s dancing like she never danced before”.
They ended on the sombre version of Outkast’s “Hey Ya”, which they performed on Scrubs when the janitor gets married. With everyone singing along and the band seemingly having an amazing time on stage, it was a great way to end the night. Hopefully once this UK tour has finished, they’ll return again and again for more of the same musical fun and silliness.