“I'm gonna be in a fuckin' punk band again and we're gonna work hard and kick ass”
- Ted Leo on the founding of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

I’m not your typical Indie rock fan. My collection of retro Adidas is nonexistent; I don’t smoke anything that’s been cultivated under a halogen lamp; and I don’t shudder visibly at the mention of accessible bands like Dashboard Confessional or Coldplay. So far, I’ve successfully resisted the urge to spend my Friday nights in the corner of frat basements taking notes on their playlists. However, despite my paltry Indie background, I’m excited as anyone on this campus is that Ted Leo and the Pharmacists are playing Fuel at 9 PM Friday night – and, if you have ears, you should be, too.

Ted Leo – the intense, but simultaneously laid back punk dynamo – is the ideal artist for Green Key weekend. Green Key is about excessiveness—stories of the weekend seem to be framed around the gallons of consumed alcohol and the number of floors defenestrated. On a weekend where everything is over the top, Ted Leo fits in perfectly.

Leo’s biography reads like a caricature of a punk rocker written by Dickens. He was enrolled in Notre Dame, and for a while managed to keep himself afloat through working odd jobs like roofing – until he was expelled. He then moved to Washington D.C. and made his reputation with the 90’s punk band Chisel, whose breakup prompted the above quote. After volunteering as a stevedore on the New Jersey docks in the weeks after September 11, he proceeded in 2003 to tour with his eponymous band (which had put out its first album in 1999) to the point where his vocal chords became so inflamed that they required a series of operations. In late 2004, with a set of patched-up vocal chords, he resumed his manic touring schedule to promote his latest album, Shake the Sheets.

Leo’s fame rests not so much on his biography – or even on his recorded music, for that matter – as it rests on his legendary performances. The pretentious Pitchfork Review, which seldom condescends to praise anyone, called Ted Leo “the man who perhaps most embodies any kind of Jesus act rock n’ roll still has in it.” Messianic qualities aside, on a weekend full of dramatic flair – Disco costumes and lunchtime inebriation come to mind – Ted Leo is right at home.

It is difficult to describe the experience of being at a Ted Leo concert. Some performers jump around when they play; Leo positively leaps. His eyes close, his body cradles his guitar, and his head rocks back and forth as he spits out lyrics in fits of intensity (I swear I felt some saliva at his December show in New York – it was awesome). He habitually breaks guitar strings and, in light of his 2003 tour, he apparently also breaks vocal chords. His uninhibited frenzy is contagious; his affect on crowds is intoxicating. The enthusiasm he engenders is not of the forced, I-paid $35-for-my-ticket-so-I-better-start-jumping-up-and-down variety; it is the unaffected, spontaneous energy that punk rock excels at providing.

As intense as Green Key is intense, it is also laid back. People may have been up for thirty hours and have a BAC higher than most major league batting averages, but they manage to maintain a cool and aloof demeanor, lying out on the grass at lawn parties with their collars popped and momentarily pretending they can hold down the free barbeque food the college provides. Similarly, Ted Leo’s intensity as a performer is coupled (but not moderated by) an unassuming attitude towards song-writing. In a musical world that is home to image-obsessed performers like 50 Cent and Ben Folds, Ted Leo is refreshingly indifferent to fitting into any one category consistently. He’s the favorite of alternative music brats on college campuses everywhere, but this year he released a cover of Kelly Clarkson. He now writes songs criticizing Abu Ghraib, but before that, he was writing similar protest songs about the Clinton administration. Like Green Key weekend, beneath Leo’s outward intensity lays a confident equanimity.

Friday Night Rock can be bland and snobby, but with Ted Leo they’re dead on target. To put it succinctly, while ripping off one of the more metaphysical slogans of this campaign season: Ted Leo is Green Key. Green Key is Ted Leo. See Ted Leo.