Gin Blossoms, Scott Harris Project

Susan and I went to see the free Gin Blossoms show last night, at the House of Blues in Atlantic City. I took the train there, and of course a random person talked to me. I was just putting in my headphones, and he said, "You like your iPod?" I said yeah, I love it. He said he doesn't get the iPod thing -- it's just like a Walkman. I pointed out that an iPod can hold a lot more music than a Walkman, so you don't have to choose which albums you want to bring with you. He seemed unconvinced. "Are you into music?" I asked. He said he had been in college. "Well, if you're not super into music, I guess it doesn't really matter," I said. He didn't have anything to do but talk to me -- no newspaper or book or anything.

Anyway, the opening band was good -- The Scott Harris Project. A little awkward with the stage movement/crowd banter, but endearingly so. They gave out free CDs -- I haven't listened to mine yet. I think they sound kind of like Maroon 5, maybe/probably as good. Scott Harris reminds me a little bit of Howie Day, too, but the band as a whole is definitely better than him. I don't know enough about actually playing music to comment much on this, but I think they're pretty good musicians. Each did a solo that sounded good to my untrained ear. They're poppy, kind of reggae-influenced. They started with Wyclef's "Gone til November" and ended with "Big Yellow Taxi" (you know, the "paved Paradise and put up a parking lot" song). They're currently unsigned, but I can't imagine that will last too much longer -- they opened for Toots and the Maytals recently, and for Blues Traveler. On their Myspace page Harris alludes to the fact that his father is also a musician.

So the opening band's star is rising while the Gin Blossoms are in that weird ditch of post-commercial success. It must be strange for them to play for small club crowds after their big success in the 90s. They were part of my first concert without my parents: The Spin Doctors/Gin Blossoms/Cracker (and Vinx, as my friend Patti reminded me). I was about as close to them tonight as I was back then. Then we fought to get and stay close to the stage. Tonight it was easy. The crowd was small but appreciative. The new stuff sounds great -- it fit in with their older songs, but I think the new stuff might actually be better (less pop rock, more singer/songwriter "indie" rock). The Gin Blossoms tended toward cheesiness with their recordings and were definitely overexposed in the 90s, but I think they were/are actually a good band. Robin Wilson's voice is distinctive, and he's a good frontman. He played tambourine and passed it back and forth with the crowd, picking crowd members to play on each song. He ordered drinks from the stage, something I've never seen a musician do before (three Chivas and tonics?, a Red Bull and vodka, and a screwdriver). He often sang into people's cell phones for the friends who weren't fortunate enough to attend the show. He's funny, in an ironic way, which particularly suits the Gin Blossoms' present circumstances of having to work their way back up. ("We're just four guys from the dusty desert, playing sixty shows in the next forty days or something.") They played all their hits and then did "Rocket Man" as an encore, with Wilson starting alone on an acoustic guitar.

The second encore song was (I think) by the Pistoleros, which is interesting, because of the Gin Blossoms' sad past (of which I was previously unaware -- the joy of Wikipedia). Apparently Doug Hopkins was an original member of the Gin Blossoms, and he wrote some of their hit songs, including "Hey Jealousy" and "Found Out About You". He was kicked out of the band while they were working on their second album because of his alcoholism -- the label threatened to drop the Gin Blossoms if they didn't get rid of him. He became a member of the Chimeras (which later became the Pistoleros), and wrote their one hit song. He quit that band and then killed himself. So the Gin Blossoms named their second album Congratulations...I'm Sorry because that's what people kept saying to them about their success and Hopkins' death.

This also makes a piece of seemingly meaningless stage banter make more sense. One guitarist (the one from Hollywood -- I don't feel like over-researching this to find his name. Jesse Valenzuela, I think) pointed out that Robin wrote one of the songs, ("Follow You Down"?) "which was one of the biggest hits we had." This was probably in response to criticism of their songwriting post-Hopkins.

I listened to their new single when I got home last night, and it doesn't sound nearly as good as they sounded live. It's pretty overproduced and radio-friendly. It sounds like their earlier recordings, what I remember of them, which also weren't as good as their live show. Too bad -- I was all ready to jump back on their bandwagon. Still, I'll give the new album a listen sometime.

A last observation -- it was interesting to see both bands do bittersweet songs about how it's tough to be on the road ("Gone 'Til November" and "Rocket Man") because they have such different experiences of the music business. "Rocket Man" had more weight in Robin Wilson's hands -- he seems to have been eaten up by the thirteen years since I saw him last. He seemed a little drunk, slightly unsteady, but was keeping it together well. In the words of Tenacious D, "the road is fuckin' tough." I hope it's kinder to Scott Harris and co. than it was to the Gin Blossoms.