‘Hootie And The Blowfish’ An Unremarkable But Enjoyable Show
Hootie and the Blowfish Tuesday, Nov. 26, Spokane Arena
The final show of a long, exhausting tour usually ends up being brilliant or a complete disaster.
Usually, because the band members are physically drained, sick of each other and burned out on playing the same material every night, the show turns out to be a waste of time at the audience’s expense.
Hootie and the Blowfish’s concert at the Spokane Arena on Tuesday, the last of a tour that started back in April, wasn’t a disaster, but it sure wasn’t remarkable.
The band members let their fatigue show as they lumbered on stage, taking a few moments to get situated.
Early on, Hootie and the Blowfish gasped their way through three soulless songs.
Despite a roaring and “hooing” crowd of about 7,000, Hootie and the Blowfish conveyed little spunk or spark. Guitarist Mark Bryan, who bobbed his head, posed and bounced, appeared to be the only musician interested in being on stage.
Singer-guitarist Darius Rucker forced his vocals. The baritone, normally a resonant singer, wailed like he was having a limb amputated, yielding some pretty harsh tones.
But when he removed his sweater, revealing a college athletic T-shirt, exchanged a stocking cap for his trademark ball cap and strapped on his acoustic six-string, he was instantly transformed.
As the show wore on, his vocals smoothed out and the rest of the band, augmented by a guitarist/ keyboardist and a second percussionist, came alive.
As expected, Hootie played their standards from “Fairweather Johnson” and “Cracked Rear-View” as well as a battery of covers. All of which were met with rabid applause.
Often, the songs were hardly worth cheering about.
Here’s why:
Hootie and the Blowfish are the Wal-Mart, homogenized version of American roots music.
Sure the band can delve into country, bluegrass, folk, blues and rock ‘n’ roll, but their interpretation of the respective genres is shallow and pedestrian.
Not that it wasn’t refreshing to hear a mixed repertoire as opposed to jock-rock Tuesday night, but the tunes were void of authenticity and didn’t lend any insight into the material.
Hootie and the Blowfish also made a major misstep when they morphed an off-the-cuff jam into the surf instrumental “Wipeout.” First of all, it’s hard to pull off a surf song when a guitarist isn’t utilizing a distortion pedal. It’s even harder when a drummer doesn’t have the chops to bang out the barreling drum rolls the song is renown for.
It’s hard to hammer on a band whose members just seem like four of the nicest, most charming and most humble characters you could ever meet. And whose music isn’t littered with faux angst and profanity. Those are some of the reasons the masses became so enthralled by Hootie. It’s just four happy guys playing relatively happy music making everybody feel happy. That’s why they appeal to 40-year-olds as much as they do 10-year olds.
Yet safe music doesn’t always make for good music.
Most of the time Hootie’s music fares a lot better when there are brews being passed around at a pub.
There were some fleeting moments of brilliance. “Time” followed a beautiful melody and was accented by a soaring chorus.
One of the expected bright spots didn’t happen when Hootie performed Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way,” although the exaggerated vocals sung during the chorus were quite funny. It occurred when the foursome brought out the entire cast of opening band Speech minus the singer (Speech) to perform Bill Withers’ blistering soul classic “Use Me.” The two groups churned out a tasteful rendition of the song and had fun playing it. Even better, the audience had fun dancing to it.
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