Fountains Of Wayne

So, instead of spending a fair amount of weeks looking forward to a Fountains Of Wayne show, I just noticed yesterday morning that they were playing Belgium yesterday evening. Holy fuck. A friend of mine actually read about it and posted on the facebook shiznit and that's how I discovered and got totally siked the next 12 or so hours.
This September Zac from the Wellingtons recommended them to me so I checked them out properly (of course I had heard and loved Mexican Wine and Stacy's Mom) and they're an amazing pop band (one of the best). Their song writing sensibility is just untouchable.
And now I was bound to see them live on stage. Siked as fuck.

The show started with David Mead, who is a singer-songwriter with a hat. Seriously? Yeah, seriously. But, all stereotypes aside, and although he didn't do anything original, he played some great tunes on the verge between serious shit and less serious shit. Highlight was probably Guy On Guy, a perfect example of that. Electric guitar was a pro because it gave the songs more power and a certain drive that lots of singer-songwriters have lacking. Likeable dude, his next album is called Dudes. You can check it out if if you're into it.

Then Fountains Of Wayne came up. I'm used to smaller punk rock shows so I always find it funny to see bands with roadies and intro music and so on. So they came on stage and BAM - Little Red Light. The show got going immediately. All the hits came along, and they of course have nur hits. Super tight performance and amazing sound as well. No hold-ups except for a broken amp which got replaced fast and the kept playing with guitarist on bass and bassist on keyboards. The show must go on. Audience participation which was cool (3 people got on stage with percussionist things). And the songs, they were amazing. Acoustic, electric, slow, fast, it was all well-balanced, didn't bore in the least and just really fitting. Radiation Vibe got split into with 2 or 3 covers right in the middle of the song. The upbeat stuff generally got more reaction obviously but the slower or softer stuff is equally as good. I was happy during the whole set.
The guys are really down-to-earth and although the guitarist looks like he should be in Mötley Crüe they don't act like rock stars. They're just Fountains Of Wayne, a really good power pop band. And as every good band does, they as well had an encore planned. Of course it included Stacy's Mom, their biggest hit and probably rightfully because it might just be their best song. But as everyone was expecting Stacy's Mom, the dude just held on to his acoustic guitar... and started jamming and acoustic (full-band, of course) version of it. It was far above awesome. And it's really cool they do that because you're not gonna hear that anywhere else. Last song was Sink To The Bottom and that was a major ending. Audience singing the chorus and stuff. Makes you feel alive.

In my kind of scene, it's stagedives that make you feel alive. Who the fuck needs stagedives?

Also a friend of mine didn't go and he told he was just gonna "listen to the cd later on". Yeah, buddy, you're still missing out. Live show was seriously 20 times better.