Cobra Starship will perform the annual Mirthday concert April 18 at the Touhill Center at UMSL.

If you can believe Gabe Saporta, he started Cobra Starship when an introspective desert trip turned trippy with hallucinations that followed a venomous snakebite. Supposedly the snake spoke, telling the then lead singer of emo-punk band Midtown to stop taking himself so seriously.

No problem for Saporta, who initially formed Cobra Starship to record a kitschy theme song for the campy Samuel L. Jackson-led film “Snakes on a Plane.” What’s no joke is that Saporta took an apparent one-off side project with a minor soundtrack hit and turned his band of dance-rock jesters into a successful group that has churned four albums and several hit singles.

Touring behind their latest album, “Night Shades,” Cobra Starship will headline this year’s Mirthday concert April 18 at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Breathe Carolina, The Ready Set and Twenty One Pilots will open the show, which will begin at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5 for UMSL students and $20 for the general public.

Mirthday is UMSL’s annual springtime student celebration. The day begins with a carnival from noon to 4:30 p.m. in parking lots C and D (adjacent to the Millennium Student Center on North Campus) and ends with the concert at the Touhill.

Click here or below to view the video to Cobra Starship’s biggest hit, “You Make Me Feel …”