Train pleases fans
Published by Berkshire Eagle, 8/10/11
By Jeremy D. Goodwin
LENOX—Perhaps due more to the size of venues available than curatorial choice, Western Massachusetts tends to showcase pop musicians who have had some commercial success and industry recognition, but exist a bit off the beaten path, artistically speaking.
Whether it's Wilco, Vampire Weekend or even Steely Dan (to name some of the bigger names to play locally in the past twelve months), they've the types who've gone their own way and won with a unique sound. Or they combine genres in an unexpected fashion. Or perhaps they're indie rock stars who've broken through onto the charts while retaining all the cred the cognoscenti of Brooklyn may care to offer. In short, we get the sorts of artists who receive profiles on NPR.
Train, who satisfied an adoring fanbase at Tanglewood on Monday, are not among them.
Not huge enough to fill big venues in-between hits, or distinctive enough to get by anyway on the strength of rabid diehards, they exist in a world where you either serve up a hit every time out or you go home. As long as they're on the charts, they get to keep playing.
It's the old, wheezy model that's been shaken to its core by the decline of the major labels and the diminishing influence of FM radio. There's nothing particularly memorable or noteworthy about what Train does; it's big, soft-cornered pop designed to satisfy a mass audience while causing as little offense as possible.
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for satisfying a mass audience. (And most who try end up failing.) It's this model that gives us the inescapable earworms that make their way through pop culture, coloring a season with their inescapable jingles. It provides some common ground where families can settle on a radio station in the car and all but the most self-consciously pristine hipsters can bob their heads when a bit of the chorus is played at an NBA game. It's the reason the "Now That's What I Call Music!" compilation series is an unsinkable hit. Writ large, it's the reason a live viewing of the season premiere of a megabit TV show will always surpass the experience of watching the same program on DVR. It can be nice to be in a crowd.
So it would take a real curmudgeon not to be delighted by the intergenerational delight on full display at Tanglewood during Train's 70-minute highlight reel of sweat-drenched power ballads, from the mother/daughter combos dancing in the aisles of The Shed to what presumably was a very festive scene out on a densely packed lawn. Hits like “Drops of Jupiter” and “Calling All Angels” re-created the power of their studio incarnations, with the added bonus of charismatic frontman Pat Monahan’s successful efforts to engage the crowd and imbue the proceedings with a healthy dose of PG-rated sensuality—from snapping a photo of himself with a woman in the front row while singing the chorus to “Meet Virginia” to signing the cowboy hat he wore as a prop during “She’s On Fire” before tossing it to the crowd. (He claimed he included his phone number.)
LENOX—Perhaps due more to the size of venues available than curatorial choice, Western Massachusetts tends to showcase pop musicians who have had some commercial success and industry recognition, but exist a bit off the beaten path, artistically speaking.
Whether it's Wilco, Vampire Weekend or even Steely Dan (to name some of the bigger names to play locally in the past twelve months), they've the types who've gone their own way and won with a unique sound. Or they combine genres in an unexpected fashion. Or perhaps they're indie rock stars who've broken through onto the charts while retaining all the cred the cognoscenti of Brooklyn may care to offer. In short, we get the sorts of artists who receive profiles on NPR.
Train, who satisfied an adoring fanbase at Tanglewood on Monday, are not among them.
Not huge enough to fill big venues in-between hits, or distinctive enough to get by anyway on the strength of rabid diehards, they exist in a world where you either serve up a hit every time out or you go home. As long as they're on the charts, they get to keep playing.
It's the old, wheezy model that's been shaken to its core by the decline of the major labels and the diminishing influence of FM radio. There's nothing particularly memorable or noteworthy about what Train does; it's big, soft-cornered pop designed to satisfy a mass audience while causing as little offense as possible.
Of course, there’s a lot to be said for satisfying a mass audience. (And most who try end up failing.) It's this model that gives us the inescapable earworms that make their way through pop culture, coloring a season with their inescapable jingles. It provides some common ground where families can settle on a radio station in the car and all but the most self-consciously pristine hipsters can bob their heads when a bit of the chorus is played at an NBA game. It's the reason the "Now That's What I Call Music!" compilation series is an unsinkable hit. Writ large, it's the reason a live viewing of the season premiere of a megabit TV show will always surpass the experience of watching the same program on DVR. It can be nice to be in a crowd.
So it would take a real curmudgeon not to be delighted by the intergenerational delight on full display at Tanglewood during Train's 70-minute highlight reel of sweat-drenched power ballads, from the mother/daughter combos dancing in the aisles of The Shed to what presumably was a very festive scene out on a densely packed lawn. Hits like “Drops of Jupiter” and “Calling All Angels” re-created the power of their studio incarnations, with the added bonus of charismatic frontman Pat Monahan’s successful efforts to engage the crowd and imbue the proceedings with a healthy dose of PG-rated sensuality—from snapping a photo of himself with a woman in the front row while singing the chorus to “Meet Virginia” to signing the cowboy hat he wore as a prop during “She’s On Fire” before tossing it to the crowd. (He claimed he included his phone number.)
It was all very earnest and good-natured. Even the insert-hit-here predictability of the setlist was broken up by a sequence highlighting the backing band, with cellist and backup vocalist Ana Lenchantin singing a few verses of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” from atop the garishly lit ramp that served as the centerpiece of the staging.
Train has tasted big success and relative obscurity (it took one hitless album to threaten the band’s continued existence), and now that they’re riding high on the strength of 2009 album “Save Me, San Francisco,” they are determined to stay where they are. That means serving up a relentlessly pleasing, eventually endearing show like this one, sure to be replicated very closely on each night of the tour.
Boston Cello Quartet, a new group culled from members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, opened the show with a well-received set full of “where do I know that from?” classical melodies. When it joined Train onstage for “Marry Me,” Monahan took the opportunity to sing while running around The Shed with a wireless mic. If he had time to genially slap each attendee on the back in thanks for coming, he very well may have done just that.