11/24/2023 0 Comments Smashmouth im a believerI'm happy to report there were no flying carb attacks on Thursday night. (Though keyboardist Michael Klooster has been with the band since the '90s as well.) Most notably, Steve Harwell, the sunglassed and spiky-haired face of Smash Mouth, is no longer with the band, retiring in 2021 due to health issues and a number of chaotic on-stage incidents – including infamously ranting at a Colorado food festival crowd for throwing bread at him. It should be noted that, now more than three decades deep into their existence Smash Mouth is more like "Smash Mouth" at this point – with only one original member still with the band: bassist Paul De Lisle. And both 33-year-old Matt and nine-year-old Matt were pleased to find that the nostalgic band's performance cleared the bar set at "didn't destroy the concept of live music again." But really, while all that glitters wasn't gold Thursday night, it was at least bronze or maybe pewter. More than 20 years and hundreds of concerts later, I found myself facing my childhood '90s Cali surf-pop rock demons, as I took on the assignment to review Smash Mouth's Summerfest set at the UScellular Connection Stage. Why would I pay to hear a worse version of the record, surrounded by loud annoying people? (Maybe I've just actually been spiritually a 79-year-old this whole time.) It would be seven more years until I and my shattered musical innocence attended my first concert. So no concerts for me, thank you very much. And if a band as esteemed and as accomplished as Smash Mouth – the best band in the world according to my naive, unformed, Froot Loops-drunk child brain – couldn't play well live, well, then clearly no one was worth my time. Perhaps it was then-lead singer Steve Harwell admittedly being hammered. But that night, I came to the sad inevitable discovery that bands don't always sound live like they do on their records. Perhaps it was the acoustics of a century-old baseball stadium wrangled through an ESPN broadcast. I thought they were great I had the weeks of number one VH1 "Top 20 Countdown" rankings to prove it. So when I heard they were performing at that year's Home Run Derby at Fenway Park, I was obviously glued to my TV, eager to hear this great band play live for my first time. "Astro Lounge," Smash Mouth's 1999 record featuring the smash hit, was one of the first CDs I bought for myself – one of those formative moments where I'd found my own music that I liked as opposed to just listening to what my parents or siblings enjoyed. Growing up, I – like most of the globe – was obsessed with the song "All Star." At eight or nine years old, I would wake up at the crack of dawn on weekends to watch VH1's "Top 20 Countdown," eager to see the catchy pop rock song at the top of the list – and grumping my way through breakfast if the Goo Goo Dolls, Tal Bachman or the combined forces of Santana and Rob Thomas managed to knock it off its perch. Smash Mouth was one of my first favorite bands – and the one that ruined live music for me for years.
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