Greg Richling, left, and Jakob Dylan of The Wallflowers Saturday in Freeport
The Wallflowers brought down the horse, uh, house Saturday. The Jakob Dylan-fronted band performed a free show at LL Bean’s flagship store in Freeport, Maine as part of the store’s continuing free concert series.
Kate and me attended, despite having spent the previous nine hours getting heat stroke at the Maine Highland Games. The grunts and howls of sweaty men in kilts throwing rocks, however, were preferable to the opening band. Let’s just say this band seemed to want to be uber-em versions of the Killers or the Cure, but whose actual sound is closer to what is emitted when you step on a cat. If you’re going to emulate anyone, just do it on-key.
The Wallflowers, by contrast, seemed understated, but that only worked to their advantage. They came off like the genuine thing, mixing newer material with plenty of crowd favorites. The Wallflowers played well, sang well, and didn’t need to put on airs to do so.
The Wallflowers perform Josephine
I decided to make this post part of an exercise in live micro-blogging. So enjoy the following Twitter composite (with all spelling and grammatical errors lovingly intact) that you probably ought to read from the bottom to top, unless you have something against chronology.
[Between sets L.L. Bean showed vintage cartoon shorts, but without any sound. We had to fill in the pieces as best we could, but the result was nevertheless akin to Garfield Minus Garfield.]
Re-reading your Twitter posts made me giggle and occasionally wince in pain as I recalled the abomination that was Wild Light. I really don’t think this band could be described in words to make people understand the often hilarious, often excruciating awfulness. I’m so glad you were there with me, as I’m not sure I could have handled it on my own…
Thank goodness for the trippy old-school cartoons, and then the excellent performance by the Wallflowers, which served as a sort of cleansing from the opening act. I love a show in which the band just plays, eschewing fancy effects and outlandish antics. If the music is good, as it was here, that’s all you need. I had a similar experience at a Muse show; just simple, great performance.
I’m really glad the magic loaded waffle fries gave us the sustenance we needed to continue on to the concert after our already long day!