Save Ferris
Sept. 18, 2025
Musica – Akron, Ohio

By Rob McCune
“We need ska now more than ever,” says Save Ferris’s fiery redheaded frontwoman Monique Powell.
And she’s right, particularly about ska punk, which her band helped propel to mainstream popularity in the mid-1990s.
There’s just something about punk rockers with saxophones, trombones and trumpets that literally screams nonconformity. Something about the frenetic and sometimes chaotic rhythms and melodies that seems to grant its listeners permission to be weird, different, their unique selves.
As a genre, it’s affirming, accepting. It inspires movement and action. It’s kind. It’s just so punk rock. And that’s what we need more of right now.
Save Ferris, which formed as a band in 1995, inspired in name by the 1986 movie “Ferris Buehler’s Day Off,” has been doing its part to keep ska going for 30 years.
On a recent Thursday evening, in the college town of Akron, Ohio, the band did so while also giving a boost to a small live music venue, the Musica—stopping in for an intimate live show for a crowd that skewed heavily teen and young adult.


Opening for Save Ferris was a teen ska punk band out of Cleveland called Sabon, whose 16-year-old lead singer (and saxophonist) Sophia Parke could play Ferris Buehler’s sister Jeannie (the Jennifer Gray part) in a remake of that film. Sabon played a 30-minute set bursting with youthful energy and full of potential, with songs for their fans (and likely schoolmates) off their debut album, plus a ska punk cover of Starship’s “We Built This City” as the kicker.


For Save Ferris to share the stage with such a young, up-and-coming local band is just another testament to how dedicated they are to passing the ska punk tradition onto a new generation.
Powell paused during the headliner’s hour-long set to speak encouragingly and with relatability to the young punks. She emphasized how important it is to keep local music scenes and small venues like the Musica alive, noting how she herself very fortunately “found her crowd” at such a place when she was 17.


It’s fitting that the band’s music has served as a soundtrack for teen angst in movies like “10 Things I Hate About You” (1999).
But the song that launched Save Ferris to stardom in 1995 was a cover of Dexys Midnight Runners’ “Come On Eileen,” which the band closed their set with. Other ska-ified cover songs performed at the Musica included the Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk To F***” and Operation Ivy’s “Artificial Life.”
Save Ferris hasn’t released a full album since 1999, but a series of singles dropped in 2017, 2024 and this year are sustaining the beating heart of the band’s particular style of ska.
Long may it live.
Rob McCune is Every_Thing_After_Photo on Instagram, where he shares his concert photography and reviews, as well as clips from his “Every.Thing.After” podcast, with interviews with musicians and bands.

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