February 2006, The Loft, Atlanta, Ga.
There are some bands who go about their business making great music, but don’t seem to rise to the popularity level they should. Sure, there’s a steady base of fans who will swear by a certain band, but despite the band’s best efforts, it never finds the right traction to stardom. I’m a fan of several of these “working” bands, who may find larger success but more or less live their musical lives in venues of 650 or less.
Nada Surf is one of those bands, sending out solid albums every couple of years or so to critical acclaim, but not quite finding the crowd to go with them. The band started off quickly in 1996 with High/Low, based on a hit song (Popular) which was a bit gimmicky and not truly demonstrative of who they were as a band. The spoken-word song with lyrics taken from a 1960s book called “Penny’s Guide to Teen-Age Charm and Popularity,” was spit out sarcastically by lead singer Matthew Caws, and combined with the video was a big splash among teens. I’ll admit, I didn’t think much the band.
Neither did its label, dropping the band after 1998’s The Proximity Effect. It was a moment the band needed to decide where it was going and what it wanted to achieve, and it answered with two albums Let Go (2002) and The Weight Is a Gift (2005) that are pop gems.
I had just moved back to Georgia in 2006, and was reveling in being able to see bands after working night shifts the previous years. I made the trip to Atlanta to see the band, which had relatively new band Rogue Wave in tow, for what I expected to be a strong show.
The Loft, a music spot in downtown Atlanta above Center Stage, was at the time a barren, large room with smaller bars in corner spots and a makeshift stage somewhere near the middle of the room. It was akin to seeing a show in a house basement (or attic, as it were), but with more people, all of who smoked. In Athens you embrace shows without the smoke filling the air, Atlanta wasn’t there yet.
Rogue Wave was good, a Sub-Pop band touring on its sophomore effort Descended Like Vultures. Songs “Bird on a Wire” and “Publish My Love” still hold up today, and clearly this was a band which had a promising future
Nada Surf came out as a trio — Caws, Ira Elliot (drums, backup vocals) and Daniel Lorca (bass, backup vocals) — and in the party atmosphere you’d expect from a basement party, cracked jokes and bantered with the crowd, which in turn splashed beer about and sang to every word. It was not a big crowd, but the people there were big Nada Surf fans. I was talking with a guy at the bar, and he wondered if the band would play “Popular”. “I hope not,” I said, and he immediately agreed. “That’s not the band they are.”
The band they are wrote songs like Inside of Love, a perfect pop song emoting the lyrics of a lonely 20-something better than Dashboard Confessional ever could. It was a sterling song to play live, and the crowd was into it. “I want to know what it’s like,” they yelled “on the inside of love,” and Caws had to smile. If all he does is write that song, he’s achieved a great deal.
But he’s done more than that. The band took liberally from Let Go, opening with “Hi-Speed Soul,” adding “Blizzard of ’77,” “Happy Kid” and “Fruit Fly”. A highlight was “Blankest Year” from “The Weight Is a Gift,” a straight-ahead grinding guitar and drum celebration which opens with the words “Oh fuck it, I’m going to have a party.” Yes, a party indeed.
I’m pretty sure the band did a cover of The Smiths “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” which makes sense, and played a nice, long encore that had the crowd enthralled. It was the right length of show with an excellent selection of songs, which did not include “Popular”. Smart guys.
An album is expected of the guys this year (the band’s eighth), we’ll have to see what it comes up with. No doubt it will be pretty good.
