I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: July 20, 2018] Weezer

I saw Weezer a couple of years ago in Bethlehem.  It was my first time seeing them, but I left feeling somewhat underwhelmed. They debuted 2 new songs, which was cool, but the show felt pretty short and I was really irritated by the crowd.

Tall, drunk college kids.  A lot of pushing and shoving (but not dancing) and I could not get close enough to the action.

I enjoyed the set designs and Rivers’ get ups.  But they finished in less than 90 minutes.

True they sounded great, but overall I was just a little blah.

I felt for sure if I could see better I would enjoy them a lot more.  And this proved to be true.

This show was not in support of a new album (I didn’t realize that), it was more of a career retrospective (sort of).  And what this meant was that they played a lot of songs I really like and, amazingly, they played not only more songs than the last time (very odd for a co-headlining show), they wound up playing nine songs that they hadn’t last time.

For me, this show far surpassed the previous one.  It was fun and joyous. The crowd was totally into it (but again, a really drunk guy falling around next to me, wtf) and it seemed like the guys were having a lot of fun (well, Rivers did, the other guys don’t smile all that much).

The show began with the blue neon W lit up on stage which was designed to look like a version of Arnold’s from the “Buddy” Holly video.

It was so much fun to see and even more fun when Rivers came out in his sweater and tie and proceeded to play and sing the opening of that classic Weezer song.  Buddy Holly sounded great and was just the start of a wonderful collection of songs.

I assumed that it was going to be a kind of chronological evolution of the band.  But, no, they were going for some big hits right from the start and they followed that up with Beverly Hills.

After a few songs, Rivers went through a costume change.  I love how it was handled.  And soon enough, the set also changed to reveal what looked like a garage.  Complete with Kiss and AC/DC posters.

The back of the stage looked like a garage door, the curtains were pulled away to make it look like a 2×4-created stage and a wonderful handcrafted-looking Weezer W above the drum kit.

They played “My Name is Jonas” which gets a huge reaction from the crowd every time.  And then they played “El Scorcho” from Pinkerton.

Rivers had ona T-shirt and chain wallet  and he climbed up on the drum riser to rock out in the way that “In the Garage” told us he did,  I was really excited to hear “In the Garage,” a song I’ve always loved.  And they followed it up with “Why Bother?” a song from Pinkerton that I think of often.  Neither of these songs were played last time, so it was even sweeter to get them packed together like this.

It was quite a surprise when they followed this up with a lengthy introduction to a song that he said we could sing along to.  That could have been any of their songs, honestly, but it was really a surprise when they started playing “Happy Together.”  It was a weird choice, but one they’d been playing all summer.  It sounded fun and fine.  But the neatest part was when the song somehow segued into Green Day’s “Longview.”  It shouldn’t have worked, but it did.  Spot on and a lot of fun.

Brian Bell (in a fascinating raspberry blazer on a very hot night) has sung a few songs for the band over the years, so it was interesting to give him a lead performance on “Keep Fishin.'”

The only problem is that Rivers has something to do while that was going on.

Rivers hopped on a Razor Scooter, zipped down the ramp from the stage and began scooting back and forth between the front seats and the middle seats.  The fact that he had donned a sailor’s outfit and you couldn’t see the scooter made it look like he was sailing through the crowd.  It was really very funny and very enjoyable, even if I don’t have much recollection of Keep Fishin’ as a song.

By the time things had settled down, we realized that there were two umbrellas in the middle of tha audience.  Rivers climbed up between them and sang two acoustic songs.  I love when a band acknowledges fans with cheaper seats like that (even if in this case I didn’t have them).  He sang the lovely summery “Island in the Sun”  He had the audience sing along and use their phone lights to illuminate him (something I’ve now seen many times, but which always looks cool). During the song, I couldn’t really see what happened, but a fan jumped up on stage with him.  Rivers didn’t really miss a note and was very cool about it.   ”

When the song ended, he said, “Wow, I almost got taken out by security.  You actually don’t need to climb up here and sing on the mic with me, I can hear you fine.”

You can see a clip of this song here (4:40 when the guy sings with him, and I love hos he just seems to decide that he’s going to do it).

Then came the second cover of the night.  A surprisingly solid rendition of A-ha’s “Take On Me.”

While this was going on, the stage crew was hard at work changing the set around.  Obviously anyone in the back of the audience saw the stage stuff happening, but since we in the front were turned around, fully engaged in “Take on Me,” when Rivers scooted back up to the stage (someone there shot this video) it was a huge surprise that the stage had been converted into an iconic present-day Weezer show complete with the giant lit-up Weezer W.

While Rivers was getting rid of the scooter, they played Burndt Jamb, a breezy song.  I see from all the concert reviews that they played some of Smells Like Teen Spirit in the song, although I can said that I didn’t realize it–probably because we were all laughing and cheering so much when Rivers came out wearing a Nirvana  shirt with the sleeves cut off while playing a flying V guitar.

They played a totally rocking version of “Hash Pipe”   It sounded great and we all rocked along.  Then they played the only song from the new Pacific Daydream.  “Feels Like Summer” is a rocker, for sure. and they celebrated this rocking song by setting off gigantic ten foot tall flames

I typically go to small clubs where pyrotechnics don;t happen, so this surprised the heck out of me.  I certainly never expected to see this at a Weezer show.  It was awesome. (And you could feel the heat).

I figured the show was coming to a close so when Rivers asked where he was taking us next I was surprised that people weren’t catching on that this was an introduction to their brand new cover of Toto’s “Africa.”  I still hadn’t actually heard their version  Someone asked me if they were going to play it and I said I didn’t really care.  But damn, if it wasn’t fun and if Rivers didn’t sell the who song.  I’ve since been really surprised at how close he and the band sound to the original while putting a Weezer spin on it.

It was a fantastic ending to the main set.

I had forgotten what they hadn’t played so I didn’t know what to expect for the encore.

I was super excited that they played The Good Life  a song I’ve always liked but which they didn’t play last time.  The crowd around me was really into it which made it even more fun.

They ended with “Say It Ain’t So.”  It sounded great and we were all singing along. Then they threw out their one last big end–sparks falling from the ceiling on top of their lit up W (and more flames too, of course).

I can’t get over how much fun I had a this show, which I was sort of half excited to go to.   The whole night was great and Weezer utterly blew me away with how much they put into this production.

And just to top off the craziness if it, they played a brief but ripping cover of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” (with Brian Bell singing lead).  This just after Two Inch Astronaut did “Crazy Train” the other night.

By this time, Rivers was holding his flying V in the air, and waving the microphone stand around like the ironic rock god he had in actuality become.

He also flashed the iconic Weezer W with his hands.

This was a great show, no question.

 

PNC Bank Center, July 20, 2018	Sands Bethlehem, December 3, 2016
Buddy Holly	California Kids [white]
Beverly Hills	Hash Pipe
Pork and Beans	My Name is Jonas
Undone – The Sweater Song	(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To [rad]
(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To [rad]	Pork and Beans
Perfect Situation	Wind In Our Sail (Live Debut) [white]
My Name is Jonas	Jacked Up [white]
El Scorcho	Perfect Situation
In the Garage	Thank God for Girls [white]
Why Bother?	Beverly Hills
Happy Together with a snippet of Green Day’s Longview	Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori (Live debut) [white]
Keep Fishin’ (Brian Bell sings lead)	Undone – The Sweater Song
Island in the Sun (Rivers solo)	Island in the Sun (with Rivers’ acoustic solo version of Kiss’ “Beth”)
Take on Me (Rivers solo)	King of the World / Only in Dreams [white]
Burndt Jamb	Say It Ain’t So
Hash Pipe	encore
Feels Like Summer [pd]	El Scorcho (Rivers solo on piano for first verse)
Africa	Buddy Holly
encore
The Good Life
Say It Ain’t So
Paranoid (Black Sabbath, partial)

Songs from:

Weezer 1994
Pinkerton 1996
Weezer 2001
Maladroit 2002
Make Believe 2005
Weezer 2008
[rad]= Raditude 2009
[white] = Weezer 2016
[pd] = Pacific Daydream 2017