By Rosy Banks
Staff Writer

They’re back. 

The Bobs, the “band without instruments,” is back for their eighth year at Smothers Theatre Saturday at 8 p.m.  The show has sold out every year.

“(The Bobs are a) very San Francisco, very whack, very hip band,” said Marnie Mitze, managing director for the Center for the Arts.

The Bobs, made up of members Amy Bob Engelhardt, Joe Bob Finetti, Richard Bob Greene and Matthew Bob Stull, use only their voices and bodies to create songs from all realms of the musical spectrum.

As trend setters of the a capella movement, The Bobs use various slapping noises and body movement to create a musical, comical and theatrical show. The group uses body and voice percussion so well it sounds like instrumental accompaniment.

“They are very inventive,” said Cory Martin, a 2001 graduate who now serves as the technology liaison to enrollment management. “It’s a fun show.”

Martin saw The Bobs last summer at a charity concert for the Upward Bound House, a shelter and training program for the homeless in Santa Monica.

Critics from papers such as the Los Angeles Daily News have raved about the band.

“Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, always wickedly clever, The Bobs prove that the best instrument in creating music is the human brain,” wrote one reporter for the Daily News. “The Bobs are nothing less than sensational.  This is a must-see show … for all the gloomy pronouncements about the state of pop music, one cannot help but be heartened by the ascendance of The Bobs.”

Stull and Gunner Madsen started the band in 1981 after the singing telegram company they worked for, Western Onion, suddenly went out of business and left them unemployed. In a free help wanted ad they called out for a bass singer and eventually got one call from songwriter, bass player and recording engineer Greene.

After rehearsing six months, they got their first gig at a Cuban restaurant. Audiences roared. Loved from the get go, the trio became The Bobs.

For 20 years, the band has won audiences worldwide, expanding and then evolving after Madsen retired.

“They’re amazing artists and their intonation is impeccable,” Mitze said. “The sounds are real fun and clever. Students will like it.”

The band’s latest album, “Coaster,” shows how truly unique this group is, with songs such as “She Made Me Name You Earl,” “Domination,” “Fluffy’s Master Plan for World Domination,” and their own version of The Doors’ “Light My Fire.”

“(The band members) creates bizarre, hilarious, and impeccable music using only the tools they had in their pockets at birth — their voices, their hands, their chests, legs and feet,” writes Media Cast.

Tickets usually run about $50, but at Smothers they are only $30.  Students can get an even bigger price break at only $6 a ticket, available at Smothers box office.

January 31, 2002