Three was a charm at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) Wednesday, July 22 as Matt Nathanson, Barenaked Ladies and Train took the stage as a near-perfect trifecta, chock full of favorites – and a few surprises.
Train, which has performed a half dozen times or so at SPAC since 2001, was the headliner, celebrating its Drops of Jupiter: 25 Years in the Atmosphere Tour, but the show began with Nathanson.
Best known perhaps for his 2007 platinum hit, “Come On Get Higher,” Nathanson’s quick wit and stage banter engaged the audience, drawing frequent laughter.
“How we doin’ out there on the lawn?” he yelled after opening with a medley of “Car Crash” and Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer.” “How ‘bout in here under Thunderdome?”
Referencing Saratoga, after a passionate rendition of “Giants,” he told the audience, “It’s so beautiful here…I’m going to set up a yurt and live here!”
“As I get older, I find it harder to find people to like,” Nathanson, 53, confessed before “Impossible People,’ which had sort of a 90s Friends vibe, thanks to the multiple guitars played by his band, including frequent touring companion Aaron Tap, and two others.
The first big surprise of the evening came with Nathanson’s original, “Bill Murray,” when he took the mic and traveled up an aisle and out to the lawn to greet concert goers.
“I’m goin’ the f— out here,” he announced as he hopped from the stage, then, “I’m goin’ to the lawn, f— yeah!” in between “how ya doins” and the lyrics of the song.
“I don’t know how to get back,” he joked after going nearly full circle and back under the amphitheater roof. “Holy sh–, I’m getting my 10,000 steps in!”
“You’re not gonna wanna do this, but I just f—in’ went out there to be with you, so you better,” Nathan teased, as he introduced the next number, “Faster, and instructed the audience how to participate. The song featured some falsetto vocals and ended with a snippet of Prince’s “Kiss”.
The audience ate it up, and they gladly cooperated as Nathanson urged them to sing along during many other numbers, including “Laid” from American Pie, where concert goers had no easy feat chiming in with distended “hee-ee-ees” and “hoo-oo-oohs” at regular intervals. A pair of young ladiesadded to the revelry byswing dancing and jumping inthe orchestra pit.
The crowd joined in again on a slower-tempo cover of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” which Nathanson described as being extracted from “the Joel Hole” for a performance at Carnegie Hall.
After a guitar switch, Nathanson lured concert-goers into a competition of “Su-unshine” choruses, designating “tiers” of participants for “Suspended.”
“You people got to step the f— up over here,” he chided, then urged on the “royalty” in the loft, ultimately marveling, “It’s like the Mormon Tabernacle…The Internet’s never gonna win as long as we do this!”
Nathanson closed with “Come On Get Higher” from his Some Mad Hope album, noting, “I think you’ll know this one. You probably had sex through this in 2008.” The audience joined in on the familiar chorus and Nathanson held his guitar high vertically to end the number.
“Treat each other kind,” he said as a farewell but appeared later in Train’s set for a humorous duet with Train’s lead singer Pat Monahan.
Nathanson’s salty language was replaced by the folksiness, quirky humor and ironic lyrics of Barenaked Ladies, who came on stage around 7:45 p.m.
This bunch of middle-aged guys were seriously quirky, actually hilariously quirky, leading off with the upbeat “Lookin’ Up,” against a backdrop of brightly colored, spinning amusement park rides while guitarist Ed Robertson and bass guitarist Jim Creeggan traveled across the stage.
The band’s graphics were dynamic, charming and evocative, as in the narrative depictions of old apartments and graffiti-covered alleys for “The Old Apartment” which followed “Lookin’ Up” and the rotating hub of grass sprouting a fence, house, chickens, cats and even a bison for “Big Back Yard” in the sixth-place slot.
Indeed: BNL are quirky and delightfully surprising.
“Nice to back at SPAC,” Robertson rhymed by way of greeting the crowd. Robertson added a bit later that during the band’s time off before the show, he could have gone to “the third oldest race course in the country,” the Saratoga hot springs, and any number of other historic, local sites, “but instead I went to Chris Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’!” The crowd appreciated the irony.
Robertson asked the audience to sing the choruses for “Gonna Walk,” dryly joking: “People, look around. Anyone not singing is a racist.” At the end of the number, he quipped, “SPAC-tacular!” before introducing his “actual, human, real son on guitar,” Lyle Herbert Robertson.
The puns continued for “Big Back Yard,” which veteran band member Kevin Hearn announced he’d “like to do in standard time,” in apparent reference to the recent US controversy over daylight savings time. The joke seemed to go over the audience’s heads somewhat, so Robertson tried again at the end of the number, noting Hearn had done the song in “parsley, sage and standard thyme.”
The audience rallied in a big way for the bittersweet, rapid-fire lyrics of “Pinch Me” with Hearn switching from a white suit coat to a blue T-shirt and from guitar to keyboards.
As they do every time, haunting lyrics such as “Please, God, tell me, that I’m still asleep” somehow balanced with silliness such as “I just made you say underwear” and folksy imagery such as drinking from a hose and running through a sprinkler.
The Bare Naked Ladies added to the juxtaposition of ironies and the depth of their unique songwriting by creating a backdrop of innocent “Dick and Jane” 1950s style art that assembled and dissolved in parallel, horizontal strips reminiscent of the Surrealists’ Exquisite Corpse bar-room drawing game.
Indeed, the Canadian band is well-versed at subtly lampooning everything and everyone – including themselves, musical showmanship and social norms.
During a quick rendition of the “Big Bang Theory” theme song, Robertson and Creeggan feigned being hard rockers, shifting their weight in unison while playing on guitar.
The delightful little surprises continued with what Robertson described as a “tribute to all nations, but mostly America,” as Creeggan draped his lanky form behind an upright bass and plucked out the familiar, but somehow unexpected, therefore humorously incongruous, notes of “Mahna Mahna/Mahna Mahna” with only intermittent accompaniment by Hearn on guitar.
It was just another reminder of the band’s quirkiness, which was quickly reinforced by an all-stops-out confirmtion, as the band launched into the absurdly fast-paced “One Week,” featuring a backdrop of characters with the heads that were fish and nonsensical rapid-fire lyrics such as “Chickety China, the Chinese chicken” around the darker chorus of “One week since you looked at me… two days ‘til I say I’m sorry” or “I’m the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral.”
“Sing as many of the lyrics as you can,” lead vocalist Robertson said in introducing the signature song, and the printed words blazed by on the backdrop screen, probably to no avail because they moved so fast.
The string of quirky delights continued with an audience-participation version of “If I Had a Million Dollars,” with Hearn on accordian, Kreeggan on that big upright bass, and Robertson on acoustic guitar.
The number was made all the more weird and wonderful with background graphics of a cowboy pitching along in a saddle atop everything from a bathtub full of gold coins to an ATM machine.
Vocally, Robertson and Hearn basically conversed, with Robertson posing the hypothesis: “If I had a million dollars” and Hearn answering with the familiar possibilities. The audience, of course, backed up both of them and had a great time doing so.
Instrumentally, Hearn switched from the accordion to electric guitar and finished at the keyboards.
The frivolity and surprises continued to barrel down with a medley that ran the gamut from “Pink Pony Club” to Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” and, incongruously, veered into “Sometimes When We Touch” and “So Long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music, with a few varied snippets in between. Hilarious and unexpected, to say the least.
During the “Sometimes When We Touch” segment, one of the vocalists bent down to cozy up to a security guard, who narrowly kept a straight face, in the orchestra pit. Drummer Tyler Stewart, not to be put in a corner for the whole show, came center stage to sing and pantomime, “I flit, I fly, I don’t care if I die” during a dark-humored revision of the Von Trapp kids’ “So Long, Farewell” solos. At one point, he lifted Creeggan into the air.
The schtick was amazing, made all the funnier by the contrast in Stewart’s and Creeggan’s body types.
Stewart continued to make light of himself by doing lead vocals and a sort of choreography for a rip-roaring version of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” (of all the uncharacteristic song choices in the world for a folksy band like BNL!)
The whole band got in on the act, hamming it up with mock hard-rock moves and stances, the white-bearded Hearn on electric guitar and the shortish, roundish, balding Stewart strutting up front and flashing rock-on hand signals to the audience.
“Thank you for your delicious water,” he said above the head-banging intensity toward the end of the number. Again, out of place and hilarious!
Aptly, the Barenaked Ladies closed their set with the feel-good “Lovin’ Life”:
We’re lovin’ life.
We’re lovin’ it so much,
We wanna love it twice.
…it’s like a pizza We want another slice.
“And if you love it, it’s gonna love you SPAC (instead of ‘back’),” Robertson quipped, getting one more pun in before the end of the set.
Train opened its headline set a little after 9 pm with the background screen coming alight and showing a wooden figure of a boy wearing the band’s trademark crown. The lights flashed around the otherwise dark set, accompanied by trainlike sounds, and the band came on launching into “She’s on Fire” and a quick segue into “Fifty Ways to Say Goodbye,” – both high-energy numbers, especially from guitarist Butch Walker, who was tattooed and dressed ready to rock, displaying wide arm circles while playing. The number closed with band members leaning against one another in an angular group pose.
During the third number, “If It’s Love,” lead singer Pat Monahan, dressed in black, sallied along the stage front catching cell phones, taking selfies and tossing them back to eager audience members. Walker continued with his showmanship, whirling in circles while playing the guitar and faking a punch at bass guitarist Hector Maldonado.
Walker’s antics continued throughout the show, along with Monahan’s distinctive voice and the very electrified, often pixelated, pulsing graphics displayed during most numbers.
In my opinion, some of the subtleties and softer interpretations of recorded hits such as “Marry Me” and “Hey, Soul Sister” were lost to the big, electric sound, but the audience seemed to love the intensity.
Train’s set, like those of Nathanson and Barenaked Ladies, was not without its surprises and novelties, including cameo appearances by Nathanson and BNL’s Robertson.
Train broke with its own material briefly after the powerful and dark “Whipping Boy” to do a brief tribute to John Mellencamp with “Jack and Diane,” at which time Nathanson came on stage to share vocals with Monahan.
“This is a little ditty about Monahan and me,” Nathanson, an old friend, crooned. “Two American boys just tryin’ to break free.” Monahan grimaced a little at the parody, but the audience roared in appreciation, and the two singer-songwriters embraced.
The energy cranked up again after Nathanson left as the audience and Monahan belted out “Calling All Angels,” and background vocals provided overtones of “Don’t give up.”
“Saratoga, hands up,” Monahan urged, and the crowd echoed Monahan’s repeated “I won’t give up/you don’t give up” lines while Walker again showcased his zeal on the guitar.
“Meet Virginia” saw Monihan don a white tee-shirt lettered with the title words, and Monahan tossed several similar tees out to the audience, even making the rounds to his bandmates to have them autograph the tee shirt he was wearing.
Surprise No. 2 walked on stage for a brief segue from “Meet Virginia” to John Denver’s “Country Roads” in the form of Ed Robertson from Barenaked Ladies.
Robertson, upon seeing Walker’s bright pink socks, quipped, “Is that Butch Walker, or Butch ‘Soccer’ ?” before humorously reworking some of the lyrics to Denver’s classic, for example, “Far from heaven, Pennsylvania. Should’ve moved to Saratoga.”
About mid-set, Train softened their high-power sound slightly to accommodate the haunting “Oh-oo-ohs” of “Mississippi,” which Monahan said might be his favorite of the Drops of Jupiter album the current tour celebrates.
The high-power format at the end of the song, featuring a head-banging guitar solo by Walker center stage. Walker skewed the guitar sound by turning the tuning knobs while playing. He also used an overhand grip to slide his hand down the guitar neck, jabbed at the guitar strings and ended the song playing the instrument cradled in his neck.
Rock Monahan, Pat Monahan’s 14-year-old son, joined the band on stage for a hard-rocking version of Journey’s “Stone in Love” with the younger Monahan on guitar and vocals, jamming at times with Walker. Drummer Matt Musty meanwhile, played tambourine near keyboardist Jerry Becker while Pat Monahan moved to the drum set.
Train provided lots of crowd pleasers. In addition to old song favorites, freebies, audience shots, selfies, surprise appearances and Walker’s antics, the band produced giant beach balls, which arrived on the scene – or in the air – above the first several rows in the amphitheater during “Save Me, San Francisco.”
“Play That Song” followed with a few antics of its own. The band started out with a few bars of “Hey, Soul Sister,” upon which Monihan put the kibosh by saying “Not yet,” just as the crowd started to show their appreciation.
“Play That Song” was somewhat of a lilting reprieve from the high energy of most of the set and it gave Monahan an opportunity to have a little improvised fun, gently smoothing back Walker’s hair while singing love-themed lyrics. The crowd loved all of it, remaining on their feet to sway to the melody and sing along.
“Angel in Blue Jeans” shot up the decibels and energy once again and ended with a fitting, twangy snippet of Hozier’s “Too Sweet.”
A few moments of humor cropped up during a rousing interpretation of “Bruises” after Monahan informed the crowd that his usual duet partner was not with the band Wednesday night to perform the counter parts, but that “the boys said they could take her part.”
Walker and keyboardist Becker took places sitting on the risers with acoustic guitars and Monahan alternated amongst band members with the mic for them to perform the female parts of the duet. Most notably, perhaps was drummer Musty’s musical reply to Monahan’s lyric about wanting to “fix things.”
“I would love to fix you, too,” Musty sang in response.
Other moments included Walker’s harmonies with Monahan and what can only be described as an unexpected and operatic finale by keyboardist Becker after he toweled off his face.
“Hey, Soul Sister” arrived in force and with Walker on the mandolin for the song’s signature plinking sound, and the hammy fun continued as Walker moved across the stage to do some fancy footwork with the bass guitarist Maldonado.
Rock Monihan returned for the amped-up reggae rhythms of the Dirty Heads cover, “Vacation,” and shared a duet and a hug with his dad before the stage went dark momentarily and the banded blasted out the quick-paced “Drive By” with a lot of audience participation, a segue to the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and a group pose on the risers.
The band closed with the long awaited “Drops of Jupiter,” hundreds of hands waving side to side in the audience, and the crowd doing its part by contributing the “nah-na-nah nah” phrasing.
“If y’all had a good time tonight, make some noise,” Monahan coached them after holding an improvised arabesque pose to simulate his flight amongst the constellations, backdropped by a vibrating image of the planet Jupiter.
The audience kept up their energy, as did Walker, ending the show by playing his guitar with his arms wrapped around Maldonado before holding the guitar upside down for Monahan to strum.
You sound incredible; don’t stop now
Pat Monahan
Lots of energy; lots of schtick, but lots of fun after 25 years in the atmosphere.
Matt Nathanson Setlist: Car Crash, Giants, Laid (James Cover), Impossible People, Bill Murray (Tour Debut), Faster (with Kiss snippet), Uptown Girl (Billy Joel cover), Suspended, Come On Get Higher
Barenaked Ladies Setlist: Lookin’ Up, The Old Apartment (with Once in a Lifetime snippet), Gonna Walk, Falling for the First Time, Big Back Yard, Pinch Me, Brian Wilson, Almost Ready, Big Bang Theory Theme, Jim Creeggan Upright Bass Solo, One Week, If I Had $1,000,000, Pink Pony Club/Texas Hold ‘em/The Gambler/Hot To Go/Sometimes When We Touch/So Long, Farewell, Highway To Hell (AC/DC cover), Lovin’ Life
Train Setlist: She’s on Fire; 50 Ways to Say Goodbye; If It’s Love; Whipping Boy; Jack and Diane (John Mellencamp cover with Matt Nathanson); Calling All Angels; Meet Virginia/Country Roads; Pennsylvania Turnpike; Mississippi, Stone in Love (Journey cover with Pat Monahan’s son Rock); Save Me, San Francisco; Play That Song, Angel in Blue Jeans/Too Sweet (Hozier); Bruises; Hey, Soul Sister; Vacation (Dirty Heads cover); Drive By/Hey Jude; Drops of Jupiter
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