“We’re going to do this every year. I hope you don’t mind”, declared Sugar Ray’s forever-stuck-in-the-90’s front man, Mark McGrath, to an exuberant crowd that has packed the LC’s lawn for this year’s dosage of a trip down memory lane to a time when cell phones were West Coast nerd toys and the almost weekly exclamation of, “that was an awesome song I just heard on the radio!” resulted in an afternoon drive to the record store rather than a quick hop over to Itunes or The Pirate Bay.
For the past three years (or two, if you want to discount the Everclear year) McGrath has put together a collection of slightly less-than-relevant bands that used to be fantastic and taken them on tour for an evening of greatest hits and fun in the sun with almost zero pressure to win over anyone. And, for the past few years it’s been a highly enjoyable tour that’s sparked both great memories of songs gone by and a glimmer of hope that guitar based pop-rock can be popular again. However, this years offering didn’t quite hit the highs of past years.
This year the tour gave us Uncle Kracker, Sugar Ray, Smash Mouth and Blues Traveler. In a slight change from previous years, each band were given an equal playing time of about 45 minutes and a stage free of clutter from other band equipment. And while this did give the evening a certain festival / “no band is a headliner” kinda vibe, it allowed for the sets to drag on a little and gave the bands too much time that they didn’t really have the material to fill as cover songs, drum solos, crazy long harmonica sections and Mark McGrath talking, a lot, became a feature of the night.
Still, an evening of 90’s pop is always going to have highlights, and it did. Smash Mouth stole the show with their last two songs, “I’m a believer” (yes, I realize that’s a cover, which I just complained about in the last paragraph) and “All Star”. Both songs were simply rousing renditions of the hits that really put the band on this stage in the first place. The band’s croaky vocalist Steve Harwell looked genuinely floored by the crowd’s reaction to the latter song and happily gave up the vocal duties to the LC lawn dwellers that belted out every word.
Sugar Ray also played their part, although if you saw them last year, or the year prior then you basically got the same experience. However, in fairness to Sugar Ray, they’re not playing for a new audience, for them this is all about bringing back a massive slab of the never ending summer of the 90’s and slapping in bang in the middle of today’s folk-rock-keyboard-celebrity obsessed nation. Sugar Ray have some hits, the LC crowd lapped them up, it just wasn’t enough to keep the self proclaimed “Greatest Hits Show” going for the full length of the set.
Personally, I truly hope that McGrath stays true to his promise and keeps this tour going. However, in order to keep the crowd coming he may need to dig a little deeper into the finite barrel of washed-out 90’s bands to build a stronger line up for next years stroll down the radio friendly alternative rock highway.
Matt Ellis is a freelance photographer who covers bands that visit the city and the Columbus Crew MLS team. More about Matt can be found at Matt Ellis Photography.
