Live Review: Rogue Wave @ The Bowery Ballroom NYC [11.01.07]

Zach Rogue starts his encore the same way he started his career. He is alone on stage, representing something larger than himself. See, even when Zach Rogue was ostensibly a solo artist, he was already calling himself Rogue Wave. Not only was this an illusion to a large, unpredictable oceanographic force - it was a name for a band that didn't exist yet. As Rogue's solo debut, Out of the Shadows began to take off, he realized he would need musicians to play shows. You can't call yourself Rogue Wave without being one.

So Zach Rogue stands as Rogue Wave, accepting the invitation for encore, the rest of his band waiting back stage. He plays a few older songs acoustically before someone yells out, "Play 'California!'" Rogue looks caught. He begins sheepishly admitting that he hasn't played the song in a year and quote "I would really fuck up the guitar part and everyone would be unhappy." He is likeable and not in a way colored by the notion that likeability is important. He is just likeable.

So the crowd insists. Play "California." Rogue demurs again but with slightly less vigor. Quickly he's telling an anecdote about a similar situation when someone asked him to play the song "acapulco," a hilarious bastardization of "a cappella." So Zach Rogue agrees, he will play "California." And he will sing it "acapulco."

Rogue puts down his guitar and the lights in the Bowery Ballroom go down a little further. The last thing he says to us is, "You gotta help me out with this." So, standing in the darkness, he sings and we help him out with it. "California" is a beautiful song with instruments but it's positively chilling when sung by a room of 850 relative strangers. The last line, sung together, "so lead us there" is one of those moments that offers velocity and power from silence and stand-still.

The band spills back on stage and you could easily remember them playing their full set of songs earlier in the night. Some of the new album, Asleep at Heaven's Gate was on display and "Lake Michigan" proved to be every bit the song that's getting added on radio playlists around the country. Rogue Wave with a radio single? Oceanographic force of nature.

The night ends with a Neil Young cover that I and most other people can't place. The band places themselves at the top of their game. Rogue and his band are rocking harder than they have all night and look pretty far away from some of the ethereal acoustic pop that floods their recorded catalogue. But Zach Rogue looks pretty far from the solo artist who dressed up as Rogue Wave and sometimes we stand for things larger than we are.

[Photo courtesy of the irony and digital revolution of Noah Davis' iPhone]