I wasn’t planning on writing a review of this concert for two reasons. 1) There is already a very good Concert Review for a show on this tour, by your friend and mine, Ari Bernstein and 2) I’m not that big of a Barenaked Ladies fan. As a matter of fact, if most of my office friends didn’t go to the concert, I never would have went to it myself.
But, when I see something that good, I find it necessary to tell you folks.
The Palace Theater in Albany is not in the nicest of places. As a matter of fact, if you had to pick the worst street in Albany, you would pick the street the Palace sits at the end of. The building was built in 1931, during the height of the Depression as a movie house, and is the sole survivor of that era’s entertainment venues. The 3000-seat theater is very intimate, which is exactly what the Barenaked Ladies were shooting for during this tour. Albany is in the process of renovating the Palace, which is quickly becoming my favorite Albany venue, the shows keep coming in.
For a lot of the details of the concert, you should check out the aforementioned review which, ironically, this review will push off the main page.
The show was unlike any concert I’ve ever experienced in my life. First, there was no opening band. We arrived at the Palace at about 7:50, and by 8:10, BNL had taken the stage with two songs off their new album, after which they described what the small venue show was for. They were going to play every song off the new album, Everything for Everyone, and splash in some old tunes. They also described how they are picking songs out of a hat for their setlist on this tour.
Another difference is that there was an intermission. It’s the first concert I’ve ever been to with an intermission. At least one that didn’t involve a band change.
After a set involving a lot of songs I’ve never heard, they had a question and answer session… where one jagoff asked “where are the barenaked ladies?†He went on to win the “Most Stupid Question on the Tour†award, where they turned on sirens, which was great. They answered a question asking what some other considered names to the Everything for Everyone disc. Another person asked them have they ever been involved in a limbo contest and if so, who won. This prompted them into a limbo contest, which I thought was fantastic.
After this they returned to the music, ending the set with Alcohol and doing a similar dedication to the new song War on Drugs. The quick intermission was nice, giving the crowd a chance to grab some drinks and run to the bathroom in the 3-hour plus set.
When intermission ended, the band returned to stage around a single microphone and ran through some country sounding songs, including a cover of It Takes 2, and into One Week. This set included a song which the lead singer said they have never played live and probably never will again. If it was a joke, it was over my head… the song seemed to be named Call Me, or something of the sort. If this is truly a rarity, I apologize to you folks who feel it was wasted on me, since I don’t appreciate it.
The only song they didn’t play of theirs that I know was It’s All Been Done, which is fine, because it’s probably my least favorite of their popular songs. The set wound through a bunch of songs and ended after two encore sets, one of which was Brian Wilson, my favorite song from the group.
Now, to the details. The Palace is quickly becoming one of my favorite venues because the acoustics in there are absolutely wonderful. This is the third concert I’ve seen there, the first two being Fuel and earlier this year Tori Amos, and at each of those shows, the sound has been wonderful. The sound started off a bit shaky, but they quickly got into the groove by the second song, and it makes me even more excited for the upcoming A Perfect Circle show there later in the month. You were actually able to hear the singers, as they were miked in FRONT of the instruments for once.
Secondly, the band. The Barenaked Ladies are one of the few bands I’ve seen who come across with their fan interaction as generally nice and cool guys. It could be because they look the least like a band out of any band in the world. They look like five normal guys (who travel around with God) who happened to hit it big. The don’t seem like they’ve lost their “normal guyâ€ness. It really comes across when they interact with the fans and goof on each other on stage, including a moment where the pianist started the wrong song and they made fun of him. If they ever come through Albany again, I would love to get some time to talk with them.
They created a new fan in me tonight, and I had to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home to price some of their CDs.
If they weren’t 16.99, I would have picked a couple up.
