Thursday, Oct. 01, 2009
Concert review: The Sounds and Foxy Shazam at HOB
On my way to see The Sounds at the House of Blues on Sept. 25, I hit a major rainstorm. The rain was falling so hard I could not see five feet in front of me. To make matters much worse, my windshield wipers decided to stop working. So I pulled over to wait out the storm. While the rain never eased up, my wipers started working again.
After risking life and limb with an unsafe car in unsafe conditions, I finally arrived to the House of Blues.
From outside I could hear what sounded like Cher singing for a rock band. As I was making my way to the stage I could see that the singer was not Cher, and it wasn't even a female. He was a skinny, flamboyant man with a huge moustache. Usually when I first enter a club I get a drink, say hello to some people, etc. But I couldn't focus on anything other than this band, Foxy Shazam. Each band member flailed around the stage, heavy on theatrics and emotion, yet in an almost ironic, and comical way. The music was somewhere between Meatloaf, Queen, and MC5. Between each song the singer, Eric Sean Nally, would tell ridiculous stories and taunt the crowd. At one point, after claiming that the audience would probably not understand the song because we were "a bunch of dumb white people" he went into a soulful and overly dramatic acapella version of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" theme song by The Fresh Prince/Will Smith. This version must have been about 15 minutes long. At the part where the song says, "a couple of fellas were up to no good" he actually slapped the microphone, then yelled "they were smacking me around!"
His antics had most people laughing their asses off, while some heckled from the sidelines, which he ate up, of course. Second place for most amusing would be the keyboardist, Schuyler Vaughn White. He was completely bald, with a beard all the way down to his chest, and he was wearing a flannel shirt. The fact that he just looked silly would have been enough, but then he jumped on top of his keyboard and stomped on the keys. The band was the most entertaining band I had seen in a while, and they sounded pretty good too. Theater geeks, arena rock fans, look out for the name Foxy Shazam.
I was thinking that the members of headlining act The Sounds must be pretty confident to have someone so good open up for them.
The night was off to a good start. Up next was new wave Swedes, The Sounds. They came out with a warm welcome and singer Maja Ivarsson was looking as effortlessly cute as ever. Imagine a young Deborah Harry with the voice of Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons. The Sounds opened with the song "Dorchester Hotel," the first single off of the newest record, "Crossing the Rubicon", which has big choruses and Killers-like synth leads. It did not take the band long to play its biggest hit "No One Sleeps When I'm Awake," which went over very well. Shortly after, disco lights filled the room and the band launched into the song "Rock 'n' Roll" where everyone chanted, "1, 2, 3, 4, I want more!" Toying with the audience, The Sounds went right into a slower song. Most of the members left the stage leaving only Ivarsson and keyboardist Jesper Anderberg. They only got about 30 seconds into the song "Night After Night" before a fight broke out in the audience. Really? A fight at The Sounds show is odd enough, but during a ballad?
Anyway, after that drama was over and Ivarsson and Anderberg finished their obligatory slow song, the rest of the band came back out and played the song "Hurt You" which was made famous by a GEICO commercial, where the cavemen are on motorcycles, trying to impress two girls. The song is a great dance-y tune, and features the rest of the band on vocals. Before leaving the stage, The Sounds played the group's first single "Living in America." For their encore, the band called up Mason "Mase" Brazelle, from WKZQ-FM to play cowbell. He played cowbell for the whole song, "Song With A Mission," then about 20 or so people got on stage as The Sounds ended the night with "Hope You're Happy Now" off of the first record. The band danced with the audience members that had were on stage, and one guy would not stop trying to kiss Ivarsson. She would politely turn her head and let him kiss her cheek. It was hilarious.
As the night ended, everyone seemed happy. While the place was not packed, everyone there seemed to enjoy themselves. If The Sounds return to Myrtle Beach, I definitely recommend checking this band out.