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The opener, "Dirty Walls," greets fans with a band swathed in red and surrounded by the deafening roar of a union of Pied Pipers. You can feel the energy of the kids who still believe in a concert as being the best way to commune with their band. Even as OLP rip into a slightly down-tempo "Birdman," the energy builds and soars thanks greatly to Jeremy's power-playing with arms a-flailing. He never let up all night. Raine is a vocal force, packing his mic full of plenty of "hy-ee" wails. However, when the guys hit "One Man Army" four songs and much blinding white light later, Raine's marching with one flat voice. He quickly gets his groove back with the next tale, "Potato Girl" and keeps it going for the rest of the show. The singalong quotient becomes amusingly obvious on "Potato Girl's" quiet bridge moments and is from then on more noticeable. And is it just me, or is there a hint of "Naveed" on this song's intro and extro drum lines?
Crowd-pleasers were not forgotten as "4 a.m.," "Clumsy" and "Naveed" which had an oddly vague hint of the Cult coming from Mike Turner's guitar and incredible energy peaks and thrusts the likes of which I can only imagine Jim Morrison inspired in his day. Midway through the almost two-hour show, the massive backdrop at the back of the stage featuring a silhouette of OLP's "older gent" and album cover dude, Sol, is divided to reveal a screen for some bizarre pièces de theatre featuring the aforementioned dude.
The most surprising moment of the eve was a deliciously bass-heavy cover of Massive Attack's "Teardrop," still reeking of OLP as they took full advantage of guitar insertions in the song. After one such rock-out session, Raine decided to borrow the melodies for his "Hope" lyrics. An ironic way to re-invent a song. After repeatedly singing the line "This woman is gone," he cruised the front rows in search of back-up singers and readily found an arena full. "Starseed" closed the regular set with a tidal wave of energy to ensure a healthy encore plea, and a deafening one at that. Stepping from behind his drum kit, Jeremy revealed, yes, his chest was again a mantel for good ol' number seven. After encore numbers "Is Anybody Home?" and "Superman's Dead," the five-man army bid a riled hometown chorus adieu on a hope-filled note: "See you in the summer" (sault?).
— Review by Melanie Windover
— Photos by Rob Dutchin
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ChartAttack | D.A.M.N |
M.I.N.E |
On the Road Again | Top
50 Charts | Features (c) 1998, Chart Magazine This site is a Humungous Production |
