“This Love” of ‘neo-soul’: Maroon5 rocks UMaine
“This is the reddest room I’ve seen in my life… I don’t know if I should feel hungry or horny.” – Gavin DeGraw, after starting to perform at the MCA
I’ve been a fan of Maroon 5 for a while now – longer than most fans who heard “Harder to Breathe” on the radio and decided it would be a good idea to start listening to these guys. Songs About Jane is amazing, and I can now safely say that their concert performances easily match that.
The band came to the Maine Center for the Arts to perform with opening acts Michael Tolcher and Gavin DeGraw. Both bands were great lead-ins to the main set, and Gavin was able to really get the audience into the concert. I personally saw at least five people around me come back after his set with CDs (in some cases signed) in their hands. His songs rang true with many of the students at the concert, and the excitement of both his band and the audience was very clear. Both openers seemed to be very open to the fans, and they loved the opportunity to talk and sign CDs and anything else after they played.
Maroon 5 played a full set to a standing crowd, followed by a three-song encore. Leading off with my personal favorite song (“This Love”), they continued through Songs and played a “new” song, “Wasted Years”. “Harder to Breathe” got everyone moving, rocking, and singing, and songs like “Sunday Morning” and “Not Coming Home” were simply amazing. Adam, James, Jesse, Mickey, and Ryan had an incredible amount of energy throught the entire show and really showed that they loved playing.
There’s the story you’ll read in the papers.
There’s really no way to put an amazing show into words; the only people who will know are the ones who were actually there. The MCA is home to some great performances – ballets, plays, orchestras… and its seating arrangement recognizes the high-class nature of the place. Its acoustics are awesome. Unfortunately, when you have a really loud rock band playing to a really loud audience, your ears start to hurt a bit. And let’s face it – you can’t sit down for a band that plays songs like “Tangled” and “Through with You” and is able to really engage the audience. The thousand-ish people there tonight were on their feet and moving like there weren’t any seats. Even the lighting conventions presented a bit of an obstacle; the operators wanted to dim the lights, but Adam and the band really wanted to see the fans. The band finally won.
I’ve been following Maroon 5 on MP3.com for a while, and I’ve downloaded four shows from the Live Music Archive by them. They do things right; they’re cool with having people share their music as long as they don’t sell it. It seems like they really love the fans, and that shows. You’ll hear a rant soon about copyright and the trouble it caused me tonight, but cheers to bands like Maroon 5 for being fair and loving what they do. If you get a chance, go see a Maroon 5 concert. If you can’t manage that, listen to them on MP3.com or buy Songs About Jane on Amazon.com or on the iTunes Music Store.
I’m going to bed very, very happy.
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