Monday night at Kansas City's memorial Hall, Weezer, headlining Yahoo.com's Outloud tour, shared their vision for a kinder and gentler rock and roll. That's not to say the music was soft or lacked intensity, on the contrary the band rocked. This just wasn't Beavis or Butthead's rock.
Rock and roll has always included a healthy portion of male fantasy, and all rock stars begin as rock fans. Some gravitate toward the fantasy of being ten feet tall and bullet proof, with a mane of flowing hair, a bevy of pinup of beauties, and men stepping aside. Others imagine a world where men can confess their heart's desire, not shelter their longings in a suit of comic book armor.
Members of Weezer, Brian Bell, Rivers Cuomo, and Pat Wilson (left to right), perform at Memorial Hall.
Weezer's Rivers Cuomo is a brave man. He fearlessly holds forth at center stage and through his honest and endearing pop songs confesses his need for love, his jealousies, his weaknesses and frustrations. A lesser man would leave all that on the tour bus and affect an attitude. Cuomo is disarming in his genuineness and through him its possible to imagine a world where boys have the words to tell girls how they feel. Perhaps this is a better fantasy to aspire toward.
Weezer's stage production evoked the image of a high school dance. The floor was a basketball court, complete with the Weezer logo in place of a mascot image at center court, bleachers, two basketball nets with video screen backboards, plus a mirror ball and crepe paper streamers overhead. The implication was clear. Weezer was playing a dance for folks that missed out, or took a pass on the Prom.
The video screens featured the usual mix of ethereal, visual non-sequitors, and home movie outtakes. The also incorporated live, straight-up-the-nose feeds from tiny cameras mounted just to the side of the band member's mic stands.
The band opened their set seated on the bleachers, with the lilting "Always" with Cuomo singing softly and playing a tiny keyboard while guitarist Brian Bell strummed and drummer Pat Wilson and bassist Mikey Welsh awaited their cues.
To draw such a solid set from a recording career that consists primarily of two albums, a self-titled effort, and "Pinkerton," released in '94 and '96 respectively, is a testament to the band. Even more significant is the existence of a devoted coterie of fans that has continued to accumulate around the band. Though it will have been 5 years between their last release and their highly anticipated follow up, and in spite of the fact that the band has kept a very low public profile since about 1997, an astounding number of high school-aged fans sang along with the band.
The band worked their way through "My Name is Jonas," "El Scorcho," the b-side "You Gave Your Love To Me So Softly," and "The Christmas Song" before playing a trio of new tunes, "Don't Let Go," "Island In The Sun," and the rocking "Hash Pipe."
The nostalgic reminiscence of pre-rock glory, "In The Garage" was followed by the aching longing for true love in the face of abundant sex, "Tired Of Sex."
Weezer then followed with a string of their hits, "Say It Ain't So," "Buddy Holly," and "Undone The Sweater Song" before closing their set with "Why Bother."
For their encore they returned to the stage to perform "Only In Dreams," and "Surf Wax America."
Before Weezer served up their set of sincere and relaxed rock and roll celebration, the audience was treated to sets by opening acts Ozma, and exuberant hometown heroes The Get Up Kids.
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