Pop culture musings brand Barenaked Ladies concert

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Barenaked
Ladies’ Ed Robertson performs in front of his
image on a screen at

the Universal Amphitheatre.

By Emilia Hwang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

His voice alone could move an amphitheater.

And so it did on Tuesday night when the Barenaked Ladies took
the stage at the Universal Amphitheatre to promote its new album
“Maroon.” The audience was instantly bewitched by
Steven Page, whose wide vocal range easily matched the large
emotional scope of the stories he sang.

A few years ago, the Canadian band probably wouldn’t have
been able to get American audiences to throw Kraft dinners on stage
even if they got on their knees and begged. Now they flash signs on
large projection screens requesting that the crowd not feed the
band.

Nevertheless, fans shower them with thunderous applause and even
gifts of underwear.

How did these striking, sorta out of shape, balding guys become
such huge rock stars?

While other bands and singing groups may hide behind fancy
outfits and synchronized choreography, BNL is not afraid to bear
its barenaked soul to the world. A certain honesty rings true, not
only in the songs it sings, but also in the banter that bounces off
the band members on stage.

Framed by large Macy’s-parade-like balloons at each end of
the stage, the band vowed to help fans cope with the
“MTV-ization” of music. Wearing matching button-down
shirts, BNL called itself a “man band” ““ its
answer to the boy band phenomenon.

The singing Canadians said that the Los Angeles crowd was much
more down to earth than it had expected, and that it wanted to work
toward establishing a solid relationship with the audience.

  BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Singer
Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies belts out "Too
Little Too Late," the first song of their concert Tuesday.
“They deserve the best a Barenaked Lady could give,”
said guitarist Ed Robertson.

Establishing a solid line of communication with the audience has
always been key to the band’s live performances. And despite
the surprisingly introspective mood of “Maroon,” BNL
still delivered a lively and upbeat show.

The band jumped right into “Too Little Too Late,”
the first track on its new album. Page started without his guitar,
allowing him to focus on his vocal skills.

While never breaking his concentration, Page enjoyed striking a
pose and doing kung fu kicks when he wasn’t at the
microphone.

Using the entire stage as his playground, he jumped and ran
around, never stopping to rest. Page continued to play to the
audience throughout the night, and the crowd cheered him on,
whether he was shaking his rump or doing the Macarena.

The concert, however, was far from being a one-man show. Though
Robertson may not have the same command as Page when singing lead,
he carried the band with his strong guitar playing which shone on
songs like “Pinch Me.”

Notorious for being hot as wasabi when he busts rhymes,
Robertson and his unique class of rap vocals is guaranteed to make
any place scream and shout. To a funky beat, he showcased his
impression of a rhyming mime who would also silently climb rope and
try to find his way out of a box.

Though no mention was made of a certain BNL band member’s
close brush with cancer, the returning keyboardist was granted his
fair share of on stage self-indulgence.

In 1988, Kevin Hearn was diagnosed with leukemia, just shortly
after the release of the quadruple-platinum album
“Stunt.”

Without the need to dwell on the past, he added a unique sound
to the ensemble, playing the glockenspiel, clarinet and vocoder in
addition to the piano. Hearn took center stage with his rendition
of the popular Star Wars “Imperial March.” Even without
Darth Vader, Hearn rendered his version more haunting than the
original score by adding chilling cascades and the shocking
conclusion that sounded a little too much like “Oops I Did it
Again.”

After all, what would a BNL show be without pop culture
references and musical parodies?

A BNL concert trademark, medleys of pop icons like Eminem,
Celine Dion, the Bloodhound Gang and Madonna colored the
performance and sent the crowd into a frenzy.

Barenaked classics like “Old Apartment” and
“Jane” were also crowd-pleasers. Injected with new
life, the favorites were treated with care, as the band took care
not to simply go through the motions of performing the songs. Doing
more than just adding new harmonies here and there, the band played
the timeless songs as if it was performing them for the very first
time.

The audience, however, could not be sent home without a dose of
serious BNL pain and misery. Capturing the rawest of emotions in
dramatic songs like “What a Good Boy” and “Call
and Answer,” the band proved that it is more than just
another commercial-hit-wonder band.

With a body of work that spans over a decade, BNL knew the only
way it could please everyone in the audience was by playing every
song it has ever written.

In a seamless anthology, the band played a medley of snippets
from all its songs, including “Hello City,”
“Grade 9,” “Spider in My Room,” “Shoe
Box,” “Break Your Heart” and “Hey
Jude.”

Hey Jude?

Oh, honest mistake. You never know what the band will do next,
and keeping the audience on its toes seems to be what the Barenaked
Ladies thrive on.