Weezer Kick Off North American Tour
It Happened Last Night
Weezer's Rivers Cuomo / Photo by Tim Bugbee
"We're the coolest band. Yeah, I said it," boasted a white jumpsuit-clad Rivers Cuomo on the opening night of Weezer's North American tour at Lowell's Tsongas Arena Tuesday night.
Quirkiness has always been the band's strong suit on record, but Weezer have finally pulled it off live with an electrifying array of both reliable and unpredictable tunes, a renewed band dynamic, and an entertaining yet completely random onstage silliness.
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Surrounded by a sea of college types and assorted older fans, the alt-pop quartet plowed through a set of the usual classics -- "Buddy Holly," "Pink Triangle," and "Hash Pipe" to name a few -- and to the audience's delight, offered many welcome twists. With other band members singing some of Cuomo's leads (and Tom Delonge of opener Angels & Airwaves guesting on "The Sweater Song"), a massive onstage "hootenanny" that had fans playing along to acoustic renditions of tracks like "Island in the Sun," and covers of Oasis' "Morning Glory" and Nirvana's "Sliver," the band has never been so refreshing.
New songs like "Troublemaker" and the wonderfully epic "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" -- both off the band's SPIN-approved 2008 self-titled album -- were the surprising highlights, partially indebted to Cuomo's silly jumpsuit, Super Mario Bros mustache, and sheer bravado, coupled with the songs' goofy soliloquies. An elated crowd singing every word and jumping in-time to every song proved that in Boston, at least, Weezer are finally performing at their quirkiest, most confident, and absolute best.
Check out pictures from last night on page 2.
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- Posted By minichick
09.25.08 5:57 PM
Jahosafex, the people who were on stage for the hootenanny were NOT all from berkley, some of those kids on the stage were from the Lowell High School Band. I know the band director at lowell and he was very excited that some of his kids were going to be on stage that night. So you may think that it was only college kids on that stage but that is were you were very wrong, and I just had to clear that up because I am very proud of those kids.
- Posted By itsthatnick
10.21.08 1:56 PM
Yes! Weezer is back on tour. I've been listening to Weezer for what seems like forever. I'm seeing them this Thursday in Houston. My friend and I recently heard about this new site for tickets. It's pretty good. But if anyone knows of where to get tickets for a reasonable deal let me know. But try.
http://www.ticketbooth.com/Search/?searchname=weezer&searchcity=&x=0&y=0
09.25.08 3:30 PM
The people in the hootenanny were not as much lucky fans, but they were all from Berkley, which is sad because on the Japan shows they had people send in videos of themselfs online, and then selected the lucky few, the Lowell show is a sham in that aspect, they were not randomly selected.