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Travis
Ogden Theater, Denver, CO 9.23.00
It's
a rare day when an opening act blows the doors off of a competent,
well liked and worthy band. I've only seen this strange phenomenon
once, when Groove Garden took the glory from Digable Planets
in the early 90's. The only reason this happened, in my opinion,
was because Groove Garden projected a better energy than Digable
Planets. It's not that the songs were better, but because
they turned an intimate concert setting into a party. They
weren't playing for you, but along side you. I'd thought this
was a one time thing, a fluke, something that I'd only see
once, because I hadn't seen an opener out perform a band before
that show and I hadn't seen it since.
Travis
proved to me that it wasn't a fluke and sometimes the headliner
isn't also the redliner. Remy Zero left the stage converting
many a soul to their sound and the crowd was pumped up for
Travis to take the stage. When Fran Healey and company entered,
there was a buzz in the audience. They wanted Travis to elevate
what had just taken place. Take it one step further.
Travis'
opening number, "Writing To Reach You", found the band fitting
into it's mold quite nicely, but the band didn't really catch
their speed until early in their set when they whipped out
the tune, "Good Feeling". "Good Feeling" is a stark contrast
to the soft alternative pop on Travis' latest album "The Man
Who", with it's toe tapping tempo and dramatic climax. As
their guitarist, Andy Dunlop took his guitar off of it's strap
and lifted in the air with one hand and continued to play
it with the other, all the while spinning his body around,
I couldn't help but feel that this was going to be a great
show. And then it all went flat.
Flat
is a subjective term, I guess. When I go see a band play live,
I'm hoping for an experience that takes me beyond the band's
recorded material. With Travis, I felt as indifferent to their
live set as I do when I'm driving down the highway listening
to their songs in my car. Really the only deviation that reminded
me that I wasn't listening to the album and that I was actually
at a concert was that the band added some older tracks to
the set list, introduced a new song entitled, "Safe" and the
closing number which was a cover of The Band's hit "The Weight".
The
experience of seeing Travis perform live didn't leave me wanting
more and in the same turn, I wasn't overwhelmed with a long,
drawn out set that included grandiose guitar solos. It was
a band playing their songs as I'd heard them before and the
addition of live bodies performing these songs didn't add
to the moment.
I'd
have loved to come away from this show with an excellent review,
but it wasn't in the cards. A couple of days later, at the
Elastica show, I saw some friends who had also been at the
Travis gig.
"What
did you think of it?" I asked.
"It
was fucking incredible, I had a great time," they all responded.
-Tyler
Jacobson
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