Forgive Sum 41's Steve Jocz for cocking his baseball cap to the side at the onset of his band's sold-out show at Bogart's Wednesday night. It's the same way Travis Barker does it, but Mr. Jocz bangs the drums almost as well as his Blink 182 counterpart, so it's as if he's earned the right to ape Mr. Barker's style.

        Forgive Deryck Whibley, too, for twitching his head while singing and strumming like Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong. Forgive Sum 41 of all its familiarity, its unoriginality, and its cliches. The band is simply the current phase of the brat-punk continuum, and as today's pop music goes, brat-punk might be as derivative as any other style, but kids with loud guitars put on a slightly better show than dancing boy bands.

        The Toronto quartet managed to put a couple laughs and a couple memorable tunes into a quick hour-long headline set. Most material came from their CD All Killer, No Filler. That title wouldn't have necessarilyworked as a name for this particular show.

        Even though they only did an hour, these guys spent half the show filling time between songs with unfunny chatter (“Do you guys like rock?” Mr. Whibley asked the audience) and crowd participation experiments (Mr. Whibley again: “When I yell one-two, you yell **** you”). Not having enough songs was the root of the non-musical goofiness.

        They were funnier when the joke was music-based. Mr. Whibley instructed the crowd to yell any heavy metal song title for guitarist Dave Baksh to play. AC/DC was yelled; Mr. Baksh played “Thunderstruck,” and the crowd went nuts. Same for Motley Crue's “Shout at the Devil.” It was a funny bit, and perhaps a first for a brat-punk band, or any other type band, to come up with.

        As for the music itself, the youngsters were wise enough to save their rap-punk anthem and hit song “Fat Lip” to the end. Other songs, such as “Makes No Difference,” “Nothing on My Back,” and the Descendants-style rave-up “Never Wake Up” were attempts to capture the snarl of more hard-core punk, but they didn't fittingly represent a band trying to make the crowd laugh the rest of the night. “Fat Lip,” with its mix of funny License To Ill-era Beastie Boys rapping and back-and-forth punk tempos, is funny and rocking. It was the mix Sum 41 was trying to achieve all night but only hit upon that one time.

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