Sorry, I’m a few days late with this one, but better late than never I suppose…
Last Thursday, December 5th, the Mrs. and I attended a LONG awaited show with Better Than Ezra. If you don’t know this band, you should.
We last saw Better Than Ezra sometime in the mid-00’s, I apologize my memory is a little fuzzy, let’s just say 2005. They absolutely KNOCKED OUR SOCKS OFF! So needless to say, as soon as I heard they were coming to town, I snatched up some tickets.
This is maybe the 5th or so visit to the Guild Theater, and as I’ve mentioned in other Concert Review posts, it’s a great place for music and I was happy to be going back again.
The opening band was Cool Water Canyon, whom we’d never heard of. 5 piece band – drums, bass, keys and 2 guitars, and several of the guys sang. The sound was a bit of Americana meets Jam-band, with a little dash of funkiness tossed in for some seasoning. It was a mixed bag if I’m being honest. They were clearly talented musicians, but it just didn’t do it for me. There were some great parts, but then they’d throw in a gruelingly long solo and just kill the flow… They had really nice, top of the line gear but nobody had a particularly great tone. Honestly sometimes that’s enough for me – “the songs were OK, but man that guitar sounded awesome!” is the kind of thing that can win me over. Not so with these guys unfortunately. Overall, I’d give them an A on musical skill, but a C- on the show as a whole. I’ll give props to the bassist though, he was absolutely the bright spot of the set for me. Not flashy or over the top, but solid as a rock from start to finish.
Better Than Ezra then took the stage and…it went down hill from there.
For some reason, who knows why, they ALL played acoustic instruments. Yes, electrified acoustics, but the sound, the tone, was of acoustic guitars and bass. There was NONE of the power that made this band so great.
I tried, I really tried to just get over it and enjoy it for what it was but I just felt it was missing something. Then they started playing “I Wanna Be Sedated”, the Ramones scorcher, on FREAKIN’ acoustics and I started thinking “this is bad…”. Thank goodness they didn’t play the whole song, just a verse and a chorus and then they transitioned into one of their songs. But it left a bad aftertaste in my ears, I’ll tell.you that.
A few songs later they did ANOTHER cover this time of Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta”, again on acoustics and that’s when the Mrs. and I looked at each other and said “let’s go”.
Better Than Ezra, we still love your records and look back fondly and the last last time we saw you, but the show at the Guild was not the business. Very, sadly, disappointing.
Better luck next time.
And to think, I grabbed these tickets instead of John 5, who was playing the very next night. D’oh!!
Thanks for stopping by!
The Boring Old Man 