Rivers Cuomo plays a dream-like set at The Beat Kitchen in Chicago on April 10, 2018.
A concert is just getting underway at The Beat Kitchen, a tiny club with a less-than-300 persons capacity. From the outside, this performance probably doesn’t seem that different from a number of others that have taken place at this location. You’ve seen this before: The singer-songwriter standing onstage with nothing but an acoustic guitar and his curated setlist of heartfelt originals and covers.
“Don’t laugh,” the bespectacled singer says with a sheepish, nervous smile. He’s holding an acoustic guitar as if it’s a shield from the audience, which is currently chuckling because he just majorly flubbed a lyric. Upon hearing this request, the audience only laughs harder. He is all nerves. His hair is minimally styled, shaggy and parted to the side and he sports a beard speckled with hints of gray. He looks equal parts rugged and delicate, sporting a surprisingly puffy coat.
Hearing that, you might start to wonder how the rest of the concert played out. I suspect you’re tempted to think this was another classic archetype — the open mic disaster. A shy fella plays his deeply emotional and soulful originals to an audience of uncaring patrons, here for loud drinks and deafening conversations. Surely that was what was going on here.
Not so. What separates Rivers Cuomo from the typical acoustic singer-songwriter type is two things:
1. He’s a seasoned professional performer who’s toured all around the world with his rock outfit Weezer.
2. He’s written a ton of crowd-pleasing sing-alongs and hits. And everyone laughing at him right now is doing so in support and love for the impish alt-rock legend.
But a passerby could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.
Even though he might have been uncomfortable with it at first, he quickly embraces the crowd’s uppity chuckles and guffaws. A smile breaks out on his face and he laughs at himself for much of the night whenever he misses a cue or hesitates on a lyric. One thing is for certain — this performance feels like a living and breathing thing. Anything can happen and the crowd is all witnessing something very special.
Why is Rivers Cuomo playing in Chicago and what made him decide to do acoustic solo shows? Cuomo himself even wondered out loud at one point, “What am I doing in Chicago?” to much laughter before quickly adding, “it’s really cool though!” The second question is unanswerable at this point without directly asking Cuomo himself. Starting in Colorado in February before re-occuring in California in March, these shows have seen Cuomo playing marathon-length concerts and reaching far back into his catalog. Whatever his reason for starting to play out as a solo artist, this might be the most exciting Weezer-related concert development in some time and Rivers Cuomo is really enjoying playing some deeper cuts.
The setlist for these performances has been very spontaneous and off-the-cuff in feeling. Chicago’s setlist rolled on with a sort of dream-logic to it which makes sense because the setlist was printed on a shirt which featured Rivers’s face beneath the text, “Have you dreamed this man?”
Rivers started the show off by playing a cover of REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling,” released in 1985. It was as bizarre an opener as one can imagine from this 90s alt-rock titan. In a night that was dominated by fanservice (classics from Blue (1994) and nine-out-of-ten songs from Pinkerton (1996) were played as well as some fan-favorites from 2016’s The White Album), Cuomo also snuck in some more self-indulgent cuts like Raditude’s infamous “Can’t Stop Partying” and his brand-new solo single, “Medicine for Melancholy.” Everything felt at home in this earnest and snug Chicago environment and all material was elevated. At one point, someone from the audience requested “You Gave Your Love to Me Softly,” a b-side from both Blue and Pinkerton eras. Rivers shrugged and said, “But I’m really excited about the setlist I put together.” This excitement showed but his eagerness to please fans won out in the end, when he encored for the second time to play “You Gave Your Love to Me Softly” for the hopeful fan. Despite not being planned, it was an amazing performance and a perfect way to close out this dreamy song selection.
[Which brings to mind another interesting audience moment of the night. Before playing a Pixies cover of “Where is My Mind?” to commemorate their upcoming joint-headlining Summer tour, Rivers mentioned that, “[Weezer’s] not gonna be able to play most of these songs on that tour” due to them being deeper cuts. A number of audience members said “Why?”, shouted “Do it!” or variations thereof and expressed confusion over this statement before Rivers ignored them and kept the train chugging along. As a band, Pixies themselves typically play plenty of deep cuts for their audience and their shows aren’t even performed with a setlist. Frances Black (singer and main songwriter of the group) will figure out what the next song will be based on a number of factors and yells it to the band. Plus, there’s a good chance that plenty of Pixies fans have also listened to Blue and Pinkerton and would hear, say Blue’s “No One Else” and say “Oh man, I forgot about this tune!” And Rivers showed us all tonight that he could handle introducing spontaneity into the full-band Weezer shows and I have no doubt the other band members could handle it as well.]
There were so many highlights from the nearly two-hour career retrospective. In terms of song choices, “(Girl We Got a) Good Thing” is one of those songs that’s so great, it’s amazing it’s never been performed on stage before and was worth the price of admission alone for this author. Featuring soaring melodies and lightweight lyrics, this song sounds even better when strummed softly and sung along to by around 300 faithful fans. From the non-Weezer Cuomo-penned songs of the night, “Sober Up” stood out. It’s a song Cuomo helped write which recently turned into a smash hit for alternative artist AJR. It felt intimate and honest as sung by Cuomo while retaining its catchy charms. The most exciting cover of the night was “1979” by The Smashing Pumpkins, which is one of my favorite songs of all time and came storming out of nowhere. That’s not to mention the two(!) Green Day covers. It all mostly worked!
I hesitate to use the term lowlights, as each song felt exciting and worth visiting on our musical journey that night. However, if I had to choose I can think of two moments where the energy seemed to be slightly lacking from both the crowd and Mr. Cuomo. While performing the B.O.B. song “Magic,” the frontman left the end of the chorus (the source of the song’s hook) for the audience to sing — and nobody did. It was another chuckle-worthy moment from the raucous crowd, but Cuomo did not give up. The following two attempts to get the audience’s vocal support went over much better than the first and the song ended up being a shaky success. “Medicine for Melancholy,” the previously mentioned solo-single Cuomo recently released online, was the only moment of the night where lots of people seemed unfamiliar and the crowd was quiet enough for conversation to potentially break out. Thankfully, people still paid rapt attention to Cuomo and a few people singing along could be heard amongst the humbly strumming guitar and “dum-diddy-dum-dums” of “Medicine for Melancholy.” Rivers didn’t take it personally and the rest of the night was such an energetic singalong through Rivers Cuomo’s catalog that he gave the crowd props for our singing and even harmonizing.
Cuomo’s guitar skills were really put under the microscope on this night due to many different factors. There was the fact that he would occasionally play the guitar solo of a song with no instrumental backing which gave those moments an esoteric and minimalist vibe that really worked. I felt myself staring and my heartrate increasing wondering if he could pull those moments off and he nearly always did. There was also the fact that playing guitar solos is typically much more difficult on an acoustic guitar. Most surprisingly though, in a good way, was the fact that nobody in the audience was yelling or chatting during Rivers’ guitar-centric portions of the night (whether playing arpeggiated chords or the aforementioned fret-burning solos)! Everyone was intently listening. It was a special thing to see, considering the number of times I’ve seen an artist play an acoustic set and the audience yammering the whole way through (a recent example being a set by The Beach Boys’ own Al Jardine at Minneapolis’s fairly pricey Dakota Jazz Club.) The night started out with a few clams, perhaps due to Cuomo’s admitted aversion to the cold temperature of the night (or cold for a Los Angeleno but pretty warm for this Minnesotan). But as the night progressed and Rivers played more intense guitar passages than he would at your typical Weezer show, his point was made: he was not only a great songwriter but a studied and masterful guitarist.
Speaking from a hardcore fan’s perspective, this was without a doubt the coolest Weezer-related event I have been to in years. The last time I saw the band Weezer, they played a set at Minneapolis’s Basilica Block Party festival wherein Rivers seemed in a dour mood, addressed the audience exactly twice and the band mostly seemed there to collect a paycheck. By contrast, Rivers was as chatty as he’s ever been at The Beat Kitchen and smiled often. A particularly memorable moment was when he talked about the technical limitations of his voice and how he’s always seen himself as more of a guitar player. Despite his protestations, Cuomo sang exquisitely on this Chicago night. His falsetto (which I’ve often felt was his ‘secret weapon’ and was fairly under-utilized in the Weezer canon up until 2014’s Everything Will Be Alright in the End) was the best I’ve ever heard it in a live setting. When he belted with his full voice he was clear and powerful, never showing signs of strain or the dreaded cracking that is the bane of a live singer’s existence.
“Is anybody here good at small talk?” he asked at one point. Rivers Cuomo may not be great at small talk, and the softballs the audience served his way that night tended to be pretty awkwardly related to how much electrolyte water he was drinking. But his relatable lyrics and gorgeous melodies connect him to people more quickly and powerfully than any small talk ever could. More than boasting a dream-like setlist, excellent guitar playing and beautiful vocals though, this show reminded those of us who were there for it what a unique talent Rivers Cuomo is when he’s just being himself.
SETLIST:
Can’t Fight This Feeling (REO Speedwagon)
Say It Ain’t So
Pink Triangle
When I Come Around (Green Day)
Buddy Holly
Island In The Sun
Across The Sea
Today (Smashing Pumpkins)
Can’t Stop Partying
El Scorcho
The Good Life
Basket Case (Green Day cover)
Do You Wanna Get High?
Falling For You
L.A. Girlz
(Girl We Got A) Good Thing
1979 (Smashing Pumpkins)
Getchoo
Magic (B.o.B. ft. Rivers Cuomo)
Medicine For Melancholy
Sober Up (AJR ft. Rivers Cuomo)
No One Else
No Other One
Where Is My Mind (Pixies)
Tired Of Sex
Encore:
Why Bother?
Encore 2 :
You Gave Your Love To Me Softly*
*Not included on setlist t-shirt.