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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | <jim@groovedisques.com> |
| Subject | Re: FOW shows |
| Date | Mon, 14 Jul 2003 11:34:43 -0400 |
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I just saw them in Philadelphia. The show was surprisingly crowded with a surprisingly young crowd. I didn't like Ben Lee, thought he was a very poor-man's Billy Bragg, but that's just me. As my friends know, I LOVE the first FOW album, and I really disliked the second one. (I've yet to hear the new one.) Here's some of what I told a few friends about FOW:
Fountains of Wayne was very good, very professional, and thoroughly enjoyable. The drummer was excellent, keeping my interest during even the songs that make people who hate power pop hate power pop. Adam Schlesinger (I think that's his name) played a very active McCartney style bass, which 'll never argue with. The lead guitarist held a predictible bag of '70s-style power pop tricks. He was fine. The other main guy, Chris, did all the singing, which surprised me (I assumed they split lead vocals and just happened to sing exactly like the other guy). He was a fine and friendly lead singer. Any time they played a song from
the first album, they sounded great, and both they and the crowd got charged up. The songs from the other albums may have worked for some folks, but to me they all sounded like what I call "rock star" music. This is the seemingly inevitable downfall of bands too closely dedicated to the power pop genre: they start writing and playing songs as if they're in Wings or Cheap Trick; as if they're wearing
platform shoes, first-generation shag haircuts, and have a throng of babes ready to flash their boobs in the front row; as if they're rock stars. The problem is, these bands are populated by 35-year-old "regular" guys who are wearing ratty old t-shirts and have lost more hair on top than what is growing over their shirt collars. I'd like to think that us regular guys can still whip up a batch of Beatlemania, but the reconstituted, second-generation stuff doesn't do it for me.
Jim
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