Wales’ most famous rock band, the Stereophonics, wound down its American tour promoting its third album, Just Enough Education to Perform, (or J.E.E.P.) at the 9:30 Club on Saturday night. On the album, the band sounds like a good natured U2 rip-off, and the T-shirts worn by the attendees gave evidence to that hypothesis. Most of its support comes from balding hipsters who think that a desk job is no reason to throw out their ratty T-shirts or stay sober on a Saturday night.
The audience was divided?most of the floor was full of the standard, serious people who fill obscure shows and nod along with the music. However, the other part of the floor (near the bar) was the Drunken Dancing Brit section. One young lady, who had discovered Mexican beer and found it to her liking, declared “Oi’m a headbangah now!” and began to thrash wildly. Some of the ex-pats in attendance had brought along Welsh flags to drape themselves in?these are the guys who watch soccer riots on CNN and secretly wish they were there.
There was no flashy entrance as the band started into its first song, “Mr. Writer.” There must have been a change in technical crew, because the lights and mixing that had made the most of opening band JJ72’s meager talents were nowhere in evidence. Halfway through “A Thousand Trees,” one of the band’s first singles off its debut album and a crowd favorite, a techie ran onto the stage and fiddled with lead singer Kelly Jones’ microphone, causing it to turn off. The band repeated the main riff three times without vocals, and eventually Jones made a valiant effort at singing unamplified over the music. After the song, he explained that the techie was his younger brother, but then muttered about wanting to do the song over again.
The poor mixing lasted throughout the show; Jones’ harsh, fragile voice is the most distinctive sound of the Stereophonics’ largely mundane offerings, but the mixing flattened and digitized his voice so badly that he soon sounded like Darude in a snit.
A few of the crowd recognized the introductory vocals to “Have a Nice Day” and sang along with the band, “Ba, bah-bah, ba ba ba,” but the microphone settings had been adjusted so that the triple harmonies had as much richness as a speech at a high school pep rally. Consistently, Jones attempted to project his voice over the addition of a second guitarist (not heard on the album) but was lost in the mess of feedback and “arty” noise. This is not to say the audience was not entertained. The club remained packed all the way through the final number, and good cheer was much in evidence, as the drunken Brits continually catcalled “Brilliant!” or “Stupendous, lad!”
Jones recognized this drunkeness, at one point asking the audience, “Are you having fun? Because we’re having a fucking nightmare up here.” However, he persevered through a two-hour set, taking a break before starting a three-song encore with a cover of “Don’t Let Me Down,” joking that he had recorded the song for a company that couldn’t afford the real Beatles. Oddly, he ended the set on “Rooftop,” the final track of J.E.E.P., never a favorite, and the crowd seemed a bit confused.
The concert seemed to be a promotion for the new album?the background was giant representation of the album cover?but the band seemed to focus more on playing unknown songs off the first two albums, such as “The Bartender and the Thief,” “Hurry Up and Wait” and “I Wouldn’t Believe Your Radio,” much to the delight of the longtime fans.
Although receiving much acclaim and radio airtime in Britain, the Stereophonics have not yet cracked the U.S. market. Perhaps their much-publicized struggle with Daimler-Chrysler over the use of the acronym J.E.E.P. and their aversion to journalists have made American distributors wary of taking on the band. In any event, the Stereophonics seem unlikely to go the way of Blur or the Verve, because as the number of Commonwealth accents in attendance proved, their base is strong enough to maintain them, at least in the U.K., for many albums to come.
