Just the other day we had the annual “Gretsch Day” celebration at the Street Sounds Music store and part of the overall excitement was a headlining appearance by the band Fountains Of Wayne. Now While I make mention of the band in the narrative for the event itself, with PiercingMetal being a music review and entertainment website, I just had to let the band shine on their own for good measure. That being said, readers can scroll past the logo below to check out my full on concert review of their set. Its only a few key thoughts but it will suffice. Then you can enjoy some side images and a video from the day itself that are all only being presented in this space.
Artist: Fountains Of Wayne
Venue: Street Sounds Music (Brooklyn, NY)
Opener: Cousin Harley, Nik & Sam
Date: 6/2/2012
Label: Yep Roc Records
Every year my neighborhood music store runs an event called “Gretsch Day” and this is a celebration of the Gretsch line of musical instruments that while including guitars, basses and drums, is pretty focused on the guitar line. The event features a host of musical performances and in the past I had secured some clips and images and posted them over on my side blog PiercingKen.com or my personal YouTube.com channel. This year the event got bigger and brighter and was going to feature a full on sized performance stage and be headlined by the Power Pop sensations Fountains Of Wayne. Now I realize that I mostly focus on the heavier side of life with my writing, but since this gig was a special event and something that would bring a new group of readers to the presentation I decided to keep my music scribe hat on and talk briefly about the set by Fountains Of Wayne. Here we go.
The band was formed in 1996 and they are a NYC based entity which is super cool in my book since I live here as well. I had to admit that I never really followed them but did enjoy the stratospheric hit tune of 2003 called “Stacy’s Mom”. That got some serious rotation on MTV since the network was still actually playing music videos at the time and who would not enjoy a video featuring a stunning Rachel Hunter in a bikini. Oh I am sorry, I realize that I must be sounding sexist here but I digress. The band consists of all four original members which is always nice to see being the case and that’s Chris Collingwood (lead vocals, guitar), Adam Schlesinger (bass, backing vocals, keyboards), Jody Porter (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Brian Young (drums). Tonight they would begin the set with “I’ve Got A Flair” from their debut release, the eponymous “Fountains Of Wayne”. “Little Red Light” and “Mexican Wine” would be up next and hail from “Welcome Interstate Managers”. Apparently the band saw this as a sign while travelling and hitting a hotel on the road and these tracks would be seeing some later set visitors from the same album. When it was all said and done, this particular release had the most songs presented from it. I was fine with that since it was the album I was most familiar with.
The guys were in good spirits and didn’t lose an inch of their professional providers of solid Power Pop throughout the nine song set. I love their harmonies and didn’t realize until after this performance that the “Stacy’s Mom” song was done in tribute to The Cars. I guess there are some similarities in the melodies now that I think of it. Of course guitarist Jody Porter seems to be the Ace Frehley of the group and in that I mean he is with you onstage at all times but when he is playing you almost feel that he is enjoying another plane of existence from the rest of us. He was clearly the most animated of the band. They would close with “Radiation Vibe”, which is also from their first release and instead of just giving us the song and saying good night, they kept it going and threw riff after riff at the crowd. There were touches of Foreigner, and nods to Peter Frampton and much more that I didn’t manage to note with the pad and paper since I was too busy enjoying myself.
I mentioned my having a limited background in the band since I was not following them at all, but I did watch MTV from time to time and saw that video for “Stacy’s Mom” with Rachel Hunter as the Mom. The video was a lot of fun and the tune is catchy as all hell so I snared that Grammy winner with the ever trusty Panasonic Lumix.
This was another successful Gretsch Day in my humble opinion and an event that I was very happy to have supported. Before we close out on this piece here are some wonderful side images that I think you will enjoy.
Here’s a few group shots of the guys that I shot after the set and the crowd had dissipated. From left to right in all of these shots are Jody Porter (guitar), Brian Young (drums), Adam Schlesinger (bass) and Chris Collingwood (guitar).
Let’s take a look at some of the cool guitar technical stuff that the band had going on for the appearance. Wow that is a lot of stuff don’t you think?
I might have said how I love the signature guitar picks and always hope to catch them if I can during a show. Here are the official ones for Fountains of Wayne. Now the brown one is used by Jody Porter while the green is that of Chris Collingwood. Cool looking yes but neither pick says their names on the opposite side. Bummer.
Here’s a shot of guitarist Jody Porter showing off his brand new Gretsch guitar.
I had to make sure we did some Metal representing in at least a single shot and the beers were flowing so it was all the more easy.
Thanks for indulging me a little bit with this off the beaten path bit of coverage. I am always interested in not only enlightening my readers to other things in music that we enjoy as a scribe but also in supporting all the talented people that we meet on a regular basis. Now its back to the Metal. If I could only get the Rachel Hunter images out of my head……..sigh.
Set list:
1. I’ve Got a Flair
2. Little Red Light
3. Mexican Wine
4. Someone to Love
5. A Dip In the Ocean
6. Red Dragon Tattoo
7. Bright Future in Sales
8. Stacy’s Mom
9. Radiation Vibe
Official Website: http://www.fountainsofwayne.com