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A concert safe, soft and expected / review
« on: Aug 25th, 2007, 9:22am » |
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A concert safe, soft and expected
The crowd came to give some love, and the Goo Goo Dolls happened to be onstage.
BY ROSS RAIHALA
Pop Music Critic
Article Last Updated: 08/24/2007 11:38:15 PM CDT
As tempting as it is to say the Goo Goo Dolls went downhill once they gave up their punk-rock roots to write prom theme songs, it's not true.
If anything, the upstate New York threesome play the role of polished, middle-of-the-road soft rockers with far more conviction than they ever showed back when they were trying - really, really hard - to be the Replacements. And while they're a decade past their mainstream dominance, they've settled into middle age quite nicely. On Friday night, they managed to nearly fill the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand with 12,794 folks.
Now, were they all there solely to gaze upon Johnny Rzeznik's cheekbones and swoon along to his lovelorn tunes? Nah. It was opening weekend of the Fair and an absolutely gorgeous night, so pretty much anyone with a few guitar-driven radio hits would've drawn beery, cheery revelers to the Grandstand. But the Goo Goo Dolls turned in an engaging, if a bit one-note, performance that perfectly suited both the crowd and the Fair itself.
It helps that the Goo Goo Dolls' songs pretty much all sound the same - they're either ballads or midtempo anthems that still sound kind of like ballads. And the set list that looked pretty similar to the hits compilation they've got on tap for the holidays. Even the lesser-known stuff like "Black Balloon," "Let Love In" and the band's "Transformers" movie contribution "Before It's Too Late" felt like familiar old friends, even to those who'd never heard them before.
Rzeznik proved an amiable frontman, chatting with fans and actually inviting them to toss their homemade signs up on stage. (During every vaguely up-tempo number, though, his guitar became mere decoration and he let the two backing guys handle all the important riffs.) Dreadlocked bassist Robby Takac, meanwhile, bounced around and pounded his four-string like he was in Poison, which was, if nothing else, kind of cute.
Newcomer Colbie Caillat opened with a brief set that tossed in her breakthrough hit "Bubbly" surprisingly early in the proceedings. She's got some star potential, though, as she had kids lined up for an autograph session that lasted into the Goo Goo Dolls' show and had at least two teens climbing the fence to snap one last photo of the, well, bubbly singer.
Perpetual rock-and-roll bridesmaids Lifehouse also turned in an efficient 45-minute show that, once again, featured the big hit ("Hanging by a Moment") two songs in, leaving the rest of the gig to focus on lead singer Jason Wade's dreamy mug and his band's dollar-store U2 theatrics. It was mostly tolerable, save for an ill-advised, slowed-down cover of the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden" that Wade delivered with an overly mannered vocal performance reminiscent of Tay "Chocolate Rain" Zonday, which probably wasn't what he had in mind.
Pop Music Critic Ross Raihala can be reached at [email protected] or 651-228-5553. Read more about the local music scene on his blog, "The Ross Who Knew Too Much," at blogs. twincities.com/ross.
http://www.twincities.com/entertainment/ci_6715229?nclick_check=1
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