Monday, July 9th 2012
Shows: Everclear, Gin Blossoms, Sugar Ray
Sugar Ray and Everclear Bring 1997 Back to Tulsa
Every once in a great while one may feel the need to sit back and indulge in a show for entirely nostalgic reasons, and the Summerland tour provides the perfect chance to do just that.
Featuring Everclear, Sugar Ray, Gin Blossoms, Lit and Marcy Playground, the first annual Summerland tour has been hitting smaller theaters and arenas for the last few weeks and last night the show stopped at Tulsa’s SpiritBank Event Center for a few hours of the best pop-rock 1997 had to offer.
While the music of these bands is certainly not life-changing, each group had at least one song that had a stranglehold on the radio back in the mid to late 90s. With each band playing a quick 30-minute to hour long set, the show moved fast and it wasn’t out of place to hear those in the crowd exclaiming that they had forgotten a certain track existed before miraculously remembering the lyrics and singing along with the rest of the crowd.
The mostly forgettable Marcy Playground proved precisely why they never really stuck around with massive chart success, overstaying their welcome before finally pulling Sex and Candy out of its dusty grave. They didn’t sound bad by any means, but the songs just blended together and the band was content with simply playing the music and not offering much of a show for the crowd.
Lit actually had decent fan representation in the crowd and did a solid job during their set. Miserable and My Own Worst Enemy sounded precisely as they did back in the 90s, and singer A. Jay Popoff has seemingly perfected the art of fan/vocalist interaction.
The Gin Blossoms were up next, opening with Follow You Down and playing a string of hits that included Found Out About You, the Empire Records soundtrack staple ‘Til I Hear It From You and set closer Hey Jealousy. Vocalist Robin Wilson hopped down onto the barricade several times, causing a rash of smiles to break out in the pit while he took time to shake hands and give out tamborines for those in the first few rows.
Sugar Ray was easily the most entertaining show of the night, running through a quick 45-minute set that included Someday, When It’s Over and Fly. Mark McGrath made it clear he still loves to perform, and the band sounded rock solid for the length of their set. Bonus points for the band really bringing the 90s front and center by entering the stage to the Saved by the Bell theme and exiting to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air opener.
Everclear was the final band to take the stage, but unfortunately Art Alexakis’ voice was in pretty rough shape. He had trouble sustaining his voice for any real length of time, and relied on his bassist and guitar player (and the audience) to cover most of the higher notes. He seemed to be having equipment trouble and was motioning to the guys at the soundboard for pretty much the entire set, but his voice seemed to be the only real problem. The crowd didn’t seem to mind being asked to handle the high notes, and it was still good to hear Father of Mine, I Will Buy You a New Life and AM Radio.
Ticket prices for Summerland are pretty cheap, so if you have fond memories of 90s radio rock or want an inexpensive way to briefly time-travel back to 1997, this tour is probably for you. Mark McGrath called this year the “first” several times throughout the show, indicating that it might just become a summer touring staple…. perhaps next year we’ll see a Spacehog/Third Eye Blind/Presidents of the United States of America lineup.
Check out the rest of our Summerland gallery:
Bummed I didn’t get to catch this when it hit Los Angeles. Looks like a fun night.
Right around the time the music industry changed to singles and MMM (Mac Making Music).
Ya gotta dig 20 feet deep to find good bands nowadays.
There are good bands releasing good music almost daily if you know where to look.
Caught this show in San Diego. Marcy’s Playground wasn’t there, which was fine with me. Everyone had good energy except Everclear. I sat through it until Art could barely mumble of the lyrics to ‘Heroin Girl’, and I left. There was a good amount of people at the SD show who thought he was drunk, but I see he just can’t really do the touring thing anymore. Do yourself a favor, and leave after Sugar Ray. That way, you are leaving on a high note with good energy, the way a concert should end.
I unfortunately agree. I enjoyed the show, but hearing Art butcher those Everclear songs was almost too much.
Sad, but true. Thankfully the other bands held their own and did an amazing job. I feel bad that Art seems to be having the problems with vocals that he is, but I am sure there are some really good fans who will still sit through it for nostalgia’s sake. And bless their hearts for that.
Poor Gin Blossoms being crammed in between those hideous acts.
Everclear sucked live in the late 90′s. No shock they suck live in 2012.
Wow! Were we at the same concert? Marcy Playground got everybody going and Lit tore it out of the park! The Gin Blossoms was one of the most engaging acts of the entire night. Sugar Ray did well but how many of their OWN songs did they play? Hmm, let’s see, came out to SBTB theme, played a couple of their songs, played Ramones songs, brought fans onstage to sing, played a couple of their songs, then left to FPB theme…Don’t misunderstand me, Sugar Ray did amazing, they were entertaining, but I didn’t really hear a lot of Sugar Ray songs in there compared with how many of their own songs the other bands played. Yeah, Everclear had some sound issues but if you were paying attention you would’ve seen A.J. Popoff signalling backstage during their set to adjust the sound and you would’ve noticed Robin Wilson having issues with his earpieces. Or how about the time that Popoff’s mike stand broke? Or when the guitarist’s mike fell during their set? Or how about when Alexakis’ mike stand fell during their set? If you didn’t enjoy the show, no problem, to each their own, but please don’t drag down an entire tour with this mess when the larger problem was with the roadies and venue staff. Also, this was their third show in three days! I will fully admit, I’m biased. I was at this tour and loved every minute of it. All of the bands seemed to be enjoying it as well. It sounds like you, Mr. Anthony, don’t like any of these bands. If you got dragged into covering a show where you hate the line up, I’m sorry, but there’s still no reason for such one sided reporting. It’s not the ’90s anymore; none of these guys are going to sound the way they did back then, but they still did a spectacular job, especially for this being their third show in as many days. I’m really sorry you didn’t enjoy the show, but this entire article just seems like you went into the tour either expecting the same performances you would’ve gotten twenty years ago and being let down, or being dragged into this tour kicking and screaming with your mind already made up. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind about this, it is what it is, but I also don’t want people thinking it’s not even worth going because they’re only going to see one and a half decent sets.
I was not dragged into this tour — I wanted to go and I had a good time.
Third show in three days? Wow, welcome to the world of touring. I don’t hate this lineup, I’ve been excited about this show since the tour was announced. I’m just not willing to make up excuses for bad performances.
I’m not dragging down an entire tour — apparently you didn’t read through this review because it very clearly says that anyone who enjoyed these bands in the past would enjoy this show.
I did read the entire article or else I would not have commented. Sorry, but I’m going to read all of it before I just shoot my mouth off. You’re right, these are professionals, everybody does several gigs in a row and everybody has off nights. For this show, I really think the venue staff dropped the ball and that that caused part of the problems. You “wanted to go and had a good time;” awesome, the review just didn’t seem to reflect it to me, but it doesn’t have to. It’s your opinion of the show you saw. The main reason I posted was to put up my opinion of the show I saw, it just so happens we had different takes on the same one. Every show’s different, I’m sure these guys have done much better shows in the past and, based on the law of averages, they’re going to have shows better than this one in the future. No one’s asking you to make up excuses for bad performances- shit happens; some performances will be amazing, some will be shitty, some will be meh. It sucks you didn’t like it as much you’d anticipated, maybe next year they’ll have a line up that you’ll enjoy more.
I just saw the show tonight in NH. And it was exactly the same minus Everclear doing any signaling that would be indicative of a sound problem. Initially we thought he was really drunk but now reading this I’m unsure. It was so bad that the guitarist for Lit appeared to be laughing at him from the sideline while Everclear was performing. The lead singer made some comments about having been divorced more times then the population of NH and then asked how many were middle aged in the crowd. It was really uncomfortable. At one point the lead singer to Gin Blossoms came up on stage with Everclear to liven things up and sang most of the lyrics in an attempt to mask the lead singers voice. It felt that the band was desperately trying to carry most of the performance but were failing miserably.