Bobby Conn says he hates fellatio, in fact he claims that it is a dangerous act. I think he is kidding.

Bobby Conn is not serious about much.

Conn doesn’t seem serious because he really doesn’t have to be. Conn is bigger than sober thinking and heavy songs. Throughout his concert at the Rock Island Brewing Company, Conn will drive this point home with the aforementioned rant against blow jobs as well as trying to score a place to crash that he would physically be unable to use, he planned on driving home after the show the whole time.

Bobby Conn is larger than life.

You would not notice this by looking at him. Offstage, Conn is the very definition of an unimposing person. He is less than average height, skin and bones, and is not the snazziest of dressers. However, once on the stage, Conn is the closest thing to a modern rock God I have seen in years. He looks like Lou Reed, prances like David Bowie, and sounds like Reed on a Major Lance kick.

Watching a Bobby Conn concert is like entering a time machine and stepping out into a world of glam rock and R&B falsetto. Backed by a three-piece band comprised of fellow Chicagoans, Conn presented a half full house with an alternate future; the Chicago sound of the 1960s and 70s is still alive and well and its soul mixed with glam rock. In this alternate future of neo-glam soul, Bobby Conn is not only the biggest thing since sliced bread — Bobby Conn makes sliced bread look like New Coke.

The frat boys and scenesters alike, ate Conn’s performance up. The most frequent utterance out of most mouths was the descriptive phrase “awesome,” or less formally “fucking awesome.” I tend to agree with this assessment of Conn’s performance. If I were a Trekkie, something I have always wanted to be yet have never had patience for, I would be tempted to say that Conn’s performance could be summed up with the infinitely terrible pun the “Wrath of Conn.” This would make Bobby Conn a younger Ricardo Montalban, with a smaller less prosthetic chest.

Songs from Conn’s latest release King for a Day dominated his headlining set. Judging by how he presents the material live, Conn’s latest release is a force to reckon with. Conn connected with his audience immediately, whether it was through thinly veiled jokes or by throwing himself at their feet in a strange pseudo sexual serenade.

Opening the concert was the Quad City’s own The Parish Festival. The Parish Festival played a short set, clocking in at a little over 45 minutes, yet the band made the best of their opening slot by trying out some new material and peppering in numerous songs from their debut release Handshakes and Heartaches. The band’s banjo laden sound was a great foil to a night filled with Chicago Soul. The Parish Festival made it obvious to the audience exactly why they are starting to receive some attention on the blog-o-sphere and in traditional print publications. These three Midwestern boys can work every angle from straight laced rock and roll to gypsy jazz to down home country picking. The Parish Festival is one of those bands that creates a paradoxical situation; you want them to be your secret band, but it is impossible not to want to turn your friends on to them.

Sandwiched in the middle was Chicago’s R&B machine Baby Teeth. This description warrants a small bit of clarification, Baby Teeth aren’t R&B in the way that the KC and Jo Jo were R&B, these guys are The Who’s form of R&B, real deal rhythm and blues. They played it down, they played it dirty, and most importantly they played it tastefully.

Baby Teeth easily had the most raw energy of any band taking the stage. Every song it played — mostly new material from their album The Simp — was filled with dancing and robotic movements, the former from the band’s lead singer/ keyboard player Abraham Levitan, the latter from bass player Jim Cooper. Cooper is one of those bright star bass players that don’t come around very often. He seems to be equal parts Tyrannosaurus Rex and Paul McCartney. He simply dominates the bass yet still manages to play some good complex melody lines. The rest of Baby Teeth are no musical slouches either, each member of the band was not only competent, but also skilled at stacking sounds.

Most of the time a night containing dick and fart jokes either makes bands seem immature, or the jokes completely overshadow the music and performances of each band. Somehow, this concert managed to be completely different. Jokes about blow jobs and assorted acts didn’t make Conn or anyone else seem stupid, sophomoric, or any other word lending itself to alliteration, it made them seem human. Of course Conn and the night’s extended cast of characters rock exponentially harder than most humans, but are human nevertheless. And in an era of bloated bands with arena-sized pocket rockets for Bruce Springsteen, a little humanity is desperately needed.