Fountains of Wayne Deliver
Sunday, June 27, 2004 at 8:44AM 2 Comments 
Friday night it rained. It flooded. As we drove to the show, we were thinking that if it was anyone but Fountains of Wayne, we would turn around, go home, and watch movies. But it was Fountains of Wayne, so we pressed on.
When we arrived, the crowd was somewhat sparse because of the weather, but the rain had abated. Finally, The Calling showed up and played, and they weren't too bad. But apparently Liz Phair took one look around and decided she wasn't going to play. I don't know if it was the rain itself, the fact that the weather caused the crowd to be small, or some other factor that lead her to this decision. Friends of ours who had bought tickets just to see Liz obviously were disappointed.
I didn't really have the best impression of Liz Phair before; I don't ever fault anyone for desiring commercial success and I don't consider "indie cred" to be some sort of currency, but she just seems increasingly desperate. So Liz bailed. After some dude with a guitar who wasn't my cup of tea, Fountains of Wayne took the stage and the rain began again.
For those who stuck around, it was well worth it. It was great to hear live the tracks from Welcome Interstate Managers, especially "Mexican Wine" (despite starting in different keys in part of the intro) and "Bright Future in Sales." We were standing right in front of the stage, and it reminded me why I like to hear live music in the first place.
The performances were generally faithful to the recordings, with the exception of a couple of deviations into the verse of "Big Ol' Jet Airliner" and the riff from "Life's Been Good" during the instrumental break of "Radiation Vibe." Plus Jen got an autograph and chatted for a few minutes with Chris Collingwood. We also got a guitar pick. Just an incredible experience.
Reader Comments (2)
liz phair has completely sold out. her older, edgier stuff had so much more personality than the stuff she's doing now. she and p.j. harvey have kind of gone the same route, and it's very disappointing. they really weren't meant to be pop.
fountains of wayne, however, is the pop i like to love.
Stage presence is such an enormous factor in how a band comes across that it can overwhelm the music. We saw a number of examples of that this weekend. The band on Friday night that preceded FOW, they were so cheesy and it was clear to me that the lead singer was a musician purely to attract "the ladies." He was workin' it but in a faux way. (It didn't help that their music was absolutely dull as dishwater.)
But Saturday night, the lead singer of Evoka tore it up. He bounced around some, then hung on the mike stand longingly, romancing the microphone and the crowd in a sexy way, but somehow he seemed sincere and raw, where the other singer just seemed desperate and a little whorish.
About each band I wondered, "Would this band be giving it their all even if there were only a dozen people in the audience?" In Fountains of Wayne and Evoka, I would say, yes. They love what they are doing and are confident about it, without being annoyingly "brass-balls" cocky. That says a lot. Neither band seemed to make a lot of eye contact, but had more far-off, dreamy looks. To me, that is cool.