BNL at the Fleetcenter, Boston, MA 3/2/04
Mar 03 '04
The Bottom Line A good show, but not nearly as good as my prior experience. 3/5 stars.
I had high hopes for Barenaked Ladies performance at the Fleetcenter in Boston this past Tuesday (3/2/04) evening, hopes sprung from the first time I saw the band back in the summer of 2001. That show was so exuberantly F-U-N that I immediately vowed to catch the band at least once for each release they toured in support of. Unfortunately, my high hopes would not be met. I guess that's only ironic given the fact that the band must have had high hopes for their very good late 2003 release Everything to Everyone only to find that the record buying public has apparently moved on from the band's geeky (cheeky?) sense of humor. Even here in Boston, for all intents and purposes the band's most hardcore American base, they were only able to draw about 10,000 fans, a far cry from the two sellouts they turned at Great Woods in 2001.
This is not to say the show did not have its highlights, or its fun moments; it most certainly did. And when the band was connecting with the 10,000 or so fans in the building it had all the energy and vibrancy of the previous show I saw. The problem is that as the show wore on, the band had to strain much harder to connect with the fans, no doubt a result of playing too many tracks from a new album that seemingly no one cares about, as well as many older album tracks that most casual fans don't know, and seemed to have no interest in getting to know.
The band started off strong, opening the show with the 1-2 punch of Maybe Katie (which should've been the first single from the new album, and then maybe people would care about it) and Too Little Too Late. This immediately got the crowd into a pretty good frenzy, and the band seemed to be especially energized to be in front of a Boston audience for the 3rd time in less than six months.
Not surprisingly, there are plenty of things going on both on the stage and on the video monitors for more than a couple of the songs. Lead singer Steven Page rode across the stage in front of a television screen for the first half of Celebrity, while Shopping featured what can best be described as artful synchronized swimming moves punctuated by yes, shopping carts. This proved to be a big hit with the crowd, and it garnered a well deserved roar. It was one of the few new songs (Another Postcard was another surprisingly) that seemed to generate any kind of buzz in the audience.
An early Grade 9 and It's All Been Done kept up the early momentum, which was lost for one seemingly endless stretch in the second half of the set, culminating in the most beautiful song I never want to hear live again, War on Drugs. Some fans seemed taken aback by the restructured acoustic version of One Week that was played, which was preceded by Ed Robertson and Kevin Hearn doing a gorgeous rendition of For You.
The band started to lose momentum when after some impressive bass soloing by Jim Creegan (including snippets of Iron Man among others), they whipped into Upside Down, probably the worst upbeat track on the new album. Box Set seemed to get some fans back, but The Wrong Man Was Convicted seemed to leave people in a fog. That continued through the aforementioned War on Drugs. As they have with the rest of the shows on this tour, the band concluded things with a few hits, including Brian Wilson and The Old Apartment.
The amount of improv was a bit less than when I previously saw them, although what was done was both funny and enjoyable. The intro video was pretty cool as well, kind of a cheesy Mighty Morphin Power Rangers type deal. But more than anything the show felt fractured, especially as it wore on into the second half. War on Drugs is a gigantic set killer. And by the end of the night, some of the goofy (if somewhat endearing) 'dance' moves put on by Page and Robertson became rather ho-hum not so funny anymore. To their credit, they work the crowd like no other act out there today, and their dorky, goofy schtick definitely works with a good crowd and a tight set.
But the Boston show just felt like the crowd was under the weather, and the set, which didn't differ all that much from the other sets on this tour (they do make substitutions but most of the regular songs show up in the same place night after night) just couldn't keep up the early momentum and energy it had going for it.
I'd still recommend supporting these guys on the road, they are excellent performers and Page especially has a great voice. I guess I just came in expecting perfection, or maybe I was expecting them to be everything I personally wanted them to be.
BNL setlist for 3/2/04 Boston:
Maybe Katie, Too Little Too Late, Grade 9, It's All Been Done, Another Postcard, Celebrity, A, Just a Toy, For You, Roadrunner, One Week, Bass Solo, Upside Down, Testing 123, Box Set, The Wrong Man Was Convicted, Shopping, Pinch Me, War on Drugs, Stump the Crew (game), Never is Enough, The Old Apartment, Brian Wilson, If I Had a $1,000,000, What A Good Boy
The band is selling bootlegs of each show of this tour at http://www.barenakedladies.com
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Member: Matt Aucoin
Location: South Berwick, ME
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