As I rode down the escalator into the depths of the Nokia Theatre - with giant LCD television screens mounted on every wall, swanky, colorful carpeting reaching across the floors, and bright neon lights beaming through the labyrinth of broad hallways - I thought to myself, “How could
The Rentals, a band that was only mildly popular in their heyday 12 years ago, generate enough interest to warrant this venue?”
Of course, it is true that when bands break up, their legend increases exponentially. Years ago, The Rentals were simply a quirky, synth-laden offshoot of nerd-rock heroes, Weezer. However, over time, The Rentals’ influence has seeped its way into the sound of every geeky emo band from the Get Up Kids to Motion City Soundtrack. The Rentals made it okay to have numerous keyboards and synthesizers in the mix, finally giving untalented friends of bands a chance to join in the fun. This kind of pioneering has given The Rentals a firm spot in the emo hall of fame, despite the fact that they had only put out two albums. Despite this I still wondered, “Do enough people care about the Rentals in 2007 to fill up the basement of MTV studios?” My question was answered several minutes later, when I was informed that the venue was distributing free tickets on the street for the show, due to lack of sales.
Although this act of crowd fluffing was somewhat disconcerting, I tried to stay positive about the situation. As The Rentals took the stage – all 7 of them – singer and Weezer co-founder Matt Sharp began slowly singing the opening lines to “The Love I’m Searching For,” the first song from their debut album. The crowd seemed genuinely excited to experience this band’s resurrection, starting from the beginning. However, this was the last genuine moment of the evening. What slowly unraveled in front of this crowd at the Nokia Theatre was one of the saddest, most gut-wrenching occurrences that I have ever encountered.
The difficult thing is deciding where to begin. First, Sharp began singing completely out of his register as well as completely out of key. The three female members of the band were all providing backup vocals, all of which were too loud and poorly harmonized. This is when it became clear just how unnecessarily large this incarnation of The Rentals truly was. Sharp outsourced his bass duties to Rachel Haden, sister of longtime Rentals collaborator Petra Haden. A short-haired, muscular-yet-cute woman, Haden looked as though she was still struggling with her fundamental bass lessons throughout the set, making one doubt that this was the same woman that played in girl-grunge group That Dog for a decade. Her position in the evening could have easily been absorbed by Sharp. It would have, at the very least, prevented him from doing his awkward, ultra-nerdy Thomas Dolby impressions all night.
The other members of the band were slightly more necessary, but no less bothersome. The violist, Lauren Chipman, pranced around in her dark red evening dress, trying her hardest to fashion herself as a seductress, resulting in a performance that was slightly uncomfortable and thoroughly unappealing. She was counterbalanced by the somewhat charming guitarist, Sara Radle, who looked like Jenny Lewis as a member of the Pipettes. However, as the evening progressed, her unfortunate dancing techniques and false enthusiasm slowly eroded her initial dash of charm. There is not much to say about drummer Dan Joeright, other than the fact that he is clearly a poor man’s Pat Wilson. Touring guitarist Shon Sullivan (also a member of openers Goldenboy) looked at best mildly interested in playing his second set of the night, hardly moving from his spot to the left of the drum kit.
All of these players’ shortcomings were dwarfed by the unbridled obnoxious behavior of synth/trombone player Ben Pringle. Bulging out of his
The Flash t-shirt and sporting an ironic moustache, Pringle proceeded to bounce up and down, busting out every cheesy dance move he could think of, not excluding “the robot.” Midway through the set, Sharp decided that Pringle’s moustache was not ironic enough while simply being viewed by the audience, so he proceeded to spend five minutes dragging out old John Oates and Tom Selleck jokes to accentuate it.
The Rentals continued to desecrate their entire catalogue song by song, churning out one uninspired rendition after another. Even their most classic songs, like “Please Let That Be You” and “Stay Awake” failed to kick the group out of this funk. They played two new songs from their recent offering,
The Last Little Life EP, which sounded like tunes your 13-year old little brother’s band should have never let out of the garage.
The highlight of the evening for most everybody in the room was “I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams,” which is a Weezer b-side. One can’t help but think that Matt Sharp may serve himself better by sending in a fresh application to his old band, but it became clear long ago that he and Rivers Cuomo’s integrity died with their friendship. Just when it seemed that this performance could not go any further downhill, the band summoned opener Copeland’s singer, Aaron Marsh, to come sing “Getting By.” He looked uneasy being onstage without his own band, and the song came out looking and sounding a lot like Clay Aiken karaoke.
The greatest signifier for the failure of the Rentals’ NYC stop was when Petra Haden came onto the stage, joining her sister for the backing vocals for the groups only true hit, “Friends of P.” Haden’s vocals were unrehearsed and shoddy. She even forgot the words to the chorus – twice. Despite this, she appeared much older and dignified than the rest of the bunch, and it seemed that she had outgrown this nonsense. After one more song, the band retreated backstage for less than one minute before coming out for an encore. Matt Sharp warned that he was going to try to cram in two more songs before the venue cut him off at midnight. After only one, the sound tech moved Sharp out of the way and swiftly turned off his synthesizer. I am not sure whether this was out of strict time issues for the venue or if it was just one man’s way of saying “enough is enough,” but I do know that I, for one, would certainly have liked to perform that very same action about an hour and a half earlier.
(photos by Abbey Braden at punkphoto.com. View more photos on Flickr)Labels: live review, nokia theatre, the rentals
Ike. Janet. Mr. Irkins. Just a few suggested names, per Leslie Feist’s request, for her brand new guitar. After Feist put out the call for guitar names prior to playing “So Sorry”, the opening track from this years’ excellent album The Reminder, the petite chanteuse saw paper airplanes bearing suggested names sail towards the stage throughout her entire lively set at McCarren Pool.
