Well tonight’s Good Friday all across
the UK and what better way to kick of this Easter
weekend than with a gig off epic nostalgia. Tonight
90’s/00’s band Everclear are playing
in Birmingham and since they cancelled their 2001
tour due to circumstances beyond their control,
they haven’t been back but tonight they
are hear and they’re ready to play to the
fans that have been waiting 14 years for this
show!
Everclear are already on the stage when I enter
the room, after a mess up with times and passes
I enter the venue just as they are wrapping up
an old favourite Heroin Girl from the album Sparkle
and Fade, which to be fair to them is exactly
what Everclear did hear in the UK, they had one
or two hit songs and released a few albums then
they disappeared completely and its apparent tonight
that the majority of the original line up left
too, as only lead singer Art Alexakis remains
and the band went from being a three piece to
a five piece. Since 2003, when the 2 other original
members left, they have only released two new
albums and only one track is played from the two
in the form of Be Carefull What You Ask For, which
actually sounds great, it’s a sweat song
with nice keys tinkling in the background behind
a crunchy chorus and the instantly recognisable
vocals of Art which make every song instantly
apparent that its Everclear.
Everclear do sound wonderful for the most part
but they have the odd sound problems, with keys
being too loud and vocals being to quite in parts,
but when they play songs like AM Radio and White
Men in Black Suits, they blow the crowd away.
Speaking of the crowd, the room is quite busy
tonight but nothing too crazy to fill it up to
the brim, but to me this tour might be a bit of
a swansong seeing as Art keeps saying to the crowd
how he’s getting to old for all of this(he
is 50 years old and looking like he’s lived
the rock and roll life to the max), and maybe
this tour is just to say thank you to the fans
that still love Everclear and to make up for not
being back in 14 years. The bands set list isn’t
too long considering they have 9 albums but they
do play about 18 songs including Heartspark Dollarsign,
Amphetamine, Song from an American Movie, Strawberry,
Volvo Driving Soccer Mom and Everything to everyone.
They wrap up the set with their biggest hits Wonderful
and Santa Monica which send the crowd into a frenzy
of pure nostalgic glee as they sing along to every
word as the classic pop song Wonderfull calms
them all down before the punky sounds of Santa
Monica rip them apart. After the normal chants
for an encore Everclear come back and ask the
audience for a few suggestions before ending on
I Will Buy You A New Life which calms and cools
this crowd with its ballad feel and sweet lyrics,
which builds into a crescendo of sound before
fading out.
Overall tonight’s gig was great, it’s
a shame I missed the supports due to the gig being
on very early thanks to the bank holiday, but
Everclear made up for the last 14 years with a
stonking gig that had a mix off fast punky tracks
and pure pop songs it had its ups and it had its
downs, it was a journey of a gig which left the
crowd feeling fulfilled. If this isn’t the
bands last UK tour then go and see them next time
and get some great nostalgia or if you’ve
never heard of them before go along and fall in
love with some great songs that haven’t
seemed to have aged.
Everclear 4/5
Review By James Daly
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