Weezer

It’s going to be a tricky night for Weezer this evening. You all know the story of how Pinkerton became a flop akin to that of Martina Hingis’ Wimbledon campaign this year and with the ‘Green Album’ not being too well received by the Weezer massive, you feel they could have a rough night ahead of them. All this and the fact it’s their first show on British soil for five whole years, make for an unenviable task ahead for the Geek-rock quartet.

All that said, five minutes into tonights proceedings all notions that tonight could be a failure are swept aside with new track ‘Burndt Jambs’ and ‘Photograph’ being knocked out at break-neck speed and extreme precision . If you didn’t like ‘The Green Album’ then tonight will be a waste of time, effort and money for you as Rivers and co. knock out virtually every track on the record and plenty of new offerings that follow the same path as the aforementioned LP. If, like me, you thought ‘The Green Album’ was a genius collection of hits just like everything else that comes out of the pint-sized frontman’s guitar, then my friends welcome to the party. Tonight is a tribute to how wonderfully simple and effective emotive songwriting can be. There’s no dancing men in alien suits, juvenile onstage banter or, indeed, any signs of pretentiousness on display at all. In fact Rivers hardly even talks to his audience for the duration, instead he just blasts out the likes of sure-fire hit-in-waiting ‘Island in the Sun’ and ‘Don’t Let Go’ with the greatest of ease, and the show is all the better for it.

For the traditionalists among you, the last five songs are all culled from the bands superb back catalogue (All be it only one of them is from Pinkerton). ‘Buddy Holly’, ‘Undone’ and ‘Say it Ain’t So’ receive the most rapturous of receptions and by the time the band send everyone in attendance into complete delirium with ‘Surf Wax America’ it’s time for Weezer to leave us (Although, hopefully, not for quite so long this time). A few had their complaints about the length of time onstage (Just over one hour) and the lack of older material, but for the majority tonight, Weezer recaptured their crown as the kings of all things all things alternative.