If Tuesday’s standing-room-only House of Blues performance is any indicator, the Wallflowers have stepped from the sidelines their name suggests and right into the fray of rock and roll.
The Wallflowers played all but two tracks from their Interscope Records release, “Red Letter Days,” an album front man Jakob Dylan calls “the kind of record you always thought you were going to make when you were a kid.”
“Red Letter Days” shows the band’s maturity moving from sounds warm and melodic on “When Your On Top,” to the rich and textured on “Here in Pleasantville.”
Also included in the set list were early songs like “Three Marlenas,” “The Difference” and “One Headlight” from their quadruple-platinum 1996 release “Bringing Down the Horse” and “Wasteland” and “Sleepwalker” from the gold 2000 release, “Breach.”
“No matter where you go, there’s always that one frat guy,” Dylan said, scowling as a rowdy college-aged guy screamed requests for “One Headlight.”
“Yeah, and then we’re going to play ‘Crash,'” he ribbed, alluding to the Dave Matthews Band song.
The comment proved that the band has successfully eluded any pigeonholing as a pop L.A. band with sentimental lyrics to secure itself a spot in old-fashioned rock and roll. But you won’t hear the band members complaining.
“That’s the goal,” said drummer Mario Calire after the show.
The band’s commercial appeal is doubtless. Its soundtrack cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” was the most successful part of the 1998 box-office flop Godzilla, and “The Empire in My Mind,” a bonus track on “Red Letter Days,” has become the new theme song of the CBS drama “The Guardian.”
As performers, the Wallflowers have solidified (even with the addition of new lead guitarist Yogi, formerly of BuckCherry), as they make ballads of originally faster-tempo songs and vice versa.
Dylan’s confidence seems to be growing as he experiments with his vocal range and takes liberties with musical arrangements.
“This one might sound a bit unfamiliar at first, but it’s bound to get there,” Dylan said introducing “Letters From the Wasteland,” a slow, achy version of the “Breach” track.
Another twist was Dylan’s and keyboardist Rami Jaffe’s elegiac acoustic version of the “Bringing Down the Horse” track “Angel on my Bike,” the first of four encores.
The band really jammed on new songs “When You’re On Top” and “Everybody Out of the Water,” with pounding bass that would make both great action-sequence film scores.
The digital synthesizing on tracks like “As Good as it Gets” and “If You Never Got Sick” translated well live under new music director Mo Z.
Warren Zanes, once a Loyola student, opened for the Wallflowers.
Zanes, accompanied by guitarist Justin Ash, sang acoustic tracks from his upcoming album “Memory Girls,” scheduled for release March 4 by Dualtone Records.
The album, hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “a thing of indie-pop beauty,” features the track “Scrapbook,” on which Emmylou Harris sings.
Stylistically, Zanes bared a freakish resemblance to Herman’s Hermits’ Peter Noone, replete in pinstripe suit and tie. But musically he held his own with strong songwriting, and powerful vocals.
Zanes holds a Ph.D. in Visual and Cultural Studies, and teaches at the School for the Visual Arts in Manhattan.
“But Loyola was some of the best professors I ever had and I’ve been to a lot of schools,” Zanes told The Maroon. Zanes joined up with the Wallflowers for a two-week tour after Dylan checked out his website (www.warrenzanes.com).
“It was nice to be heard [by Dylan] and to be hand picked was a great honor,” Zanes said. “The Wallflowers are a great rock and roll band, [this has been] very affirming.”
