Weezer a crowd pleaser by leaning on hits

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This article was published 02/04/2017 (3338 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Sunday night marked the first time California indie rock/pop/punk band Weezer has ever set foot on a stage in Winnipeg.

The crowd was an unexpected mix of those nearing middle age and those who hadn’t even been conceived yet when Weezer’s now iconic self-titled debut album dropped in 1994. Apparently, teenage melancholy is not generation specific. 

The tinkling intro of California Kids played over a dark stage, suddenly switching gears entirely and morphing into the charging guitar line of Hash Pipe.

Kicking things off with singer Rivers Cuomo’s most falsetto-y falsetto moment was the perfect welcome, and as the song came to its abrupt end, the band’s winged “W” logo lit up against the black backdrop. It felt like punctuation: “We are here, let’s do this, period.” 

Weezer has released 10 albums in their 20-something year career, but they clearly understand their fans come to see them live to hear the old stuff. Instead of insisting on loading their setlist with stuff from the new record (which they easily could between 2016’s White Album and 2017’s expected Black Album), Weezer leaned harder on the classics; My Name is Jonas, Pork and Beans and opener Hash Pipe all fell within the first 20 minutes, with Undone, the Sweater Song and Island in the Sun to follow later.

Winnipeg is only the second stop on Weezer’s string of North American tour dates so it’s hard to tell if they’re still getting used to putting on arena shows again or if they are just shy, low-energy performers in general.

Musically, they are tight — Cuomo is stellar live and is able to project his relatively delicate-sounding vocals much further and fuller than one might expect — but it would have been nice to get a better sense of who they are as people. 

Because Cuomo and the other band members didn’t really talk much on stage, it was all the more hilarious when Cuomo donned a sombrero for Beverly Hills. It was a confusing, but welcome moment of fun in a set that otherwise blew by in the blink of an eye with no dialogue to slow it down (their entire set, including encore, was about 70 minutes).

Weezer then took the rapid-fire approach with a medley that included Dope Nose, Back to the Shack, Keep Fishin’, The Good Life and Surf Wax America. 

They rounded out the main set with one of their most well-known tracks, Say It Ain’t So; it was loud and enthusiastic and perfect.

The band returned to stage for a quick two song encore of El Scorcho and their first massive hit, Buddy Holly, complete with confetti cannon explosion. The most endearing moment of then night happened as the very end, with the four members came together at centre stage to share in a bow. 

The only thing that stopped Weezer from turning a great show into an unforgettable show was the lack of connection to the crowd and the minimal performance value, though they did loosen up a bit as the set pressed on.

Regardless, musically, there aren’t too many places to find fault, and it seems unlikely diehard fans will remember this performance as anything less than perfect, if not a bit too short.

A pair of Can-Rock acts — the Flatliners and the Trews — opened the night.

While it will always feel unnecessary for there to be two opening acts, Toronto punk rockers the Flatliners took the stage first with a brief but booming set that was worth showing up extra early for. There were moments of pure punk, but the four-piece remains a very accessible band for the greater rock audience as well — their songs have a strong sense of melody and vocalist Chris Cresswell’s guttural hollers are impressively controlled. 

The Trews — who were just in town a few months back at the Burt touring in support of their compilation album Time Capsule — can always be counted on to deliver a solid, no-nonsense set of rock music.

The East Coast natives plowed through a mix of their most famous tunes, such as Tired of Waiting and Paranoid Freak, but the highlight of their set was Highway of Heroes, a track released only as a single in 2010 but was also included on Time Capsule.

It’s unlike a lot of other Trews songs in that there isn’t an urgency to it; the melody paces along and allows vocalist Colin MacDonald to show what he can do without having to compete with guitars cranked up to 10. 

“This isn’t the f—–g Junos, this is Winnipeg,” shouted MacDonald, a semi-burn against the Canadian music award show being broadcast nationally at the same time Sunday night, which the Trews were, obviously, not part of.

It’s probably safe to assume they’re more comfortable on an arena stage in Winnipeg than on the Juno stage in Ottawa, anyway, and with the roar of cheers in support of his statement, it’s probably safe to assume Winnipeg would rather have them here, too. 

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel