Unabashed adoration was on full and decidedly gleeful display from both sides of the stage Friday night at The State Room. Celebrated Utah musicians and bands (some well-known, some not so) and plenty of early ā90s alternative rock fans gathered en masse to enjoy themselves by playing, singing, and dancing along to every last song of Weezerās two best albums: The Blue Album and Pinkerton. If you were there, youāre one of the lucky ones. Whether or not you knew all the words to gems released into the world almost exactly 30 years ago, you couldnāt help but scream-sing along to all the parts of āBuddy Hollyā or āSay It Aināt Soā that you DID know, and thatās a beautiful thing. While so much of live performance amounts to buying tickets to a ramshackle time machine set to the year of your choice, only the best ones allow us to bump into old memories we forgot we still had stored up inside.
The all-star house band made up of members of Fictionist, Parlor Hawk, Pinguin Mofex, and The Madison Arm and singers including Book On Tape Wormās Scott Shepard, Fictionistsās Stuart Maxfield and Debra Fotheringham of The Lower Lights as singers (among a laundry list of ever-rotating guest stars) gave us all knew how could give. Some slated to perform didnāt. A new drummer was added 24 hours before showtime. Dicey microphones occasionally marred the sound. Would you believe none of that mattered, not to the buying audience? We gathered in the dual name of joy and blessed recollection, which was paid in full. Save for a brief intermission separating the two albums presented, the concert was a train that kept rolling, regardless of all else, and everyone benefited. Memories were offered, and joy was expected. Memories were discovered like treasure, and joy was celebrated.
By the time you left, if you werenāt fondly thinking of a time gone by with Weezer songs permanently adhering to said time as its soundtrack, chances are you need to get your ears checked. Or wait for these sorts to fire up the time machine again. Definitely one or the other.
Photos by Natalie Simpson – Beehive Photography – @beehivephotovideo
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