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The
Johnsons
Rooters
Niteclub –
Waukesha
November 19, 2004
Well,
my usual Friday night; wife in bed asleep, baby boy sleeping also,
Husband/Dad (me) asleep in chair by 8:30……then I woke up at 9:20 and
decided to venture out to Rooters which is only a few minutes from me…
I
hadn’t seen The Johnsons in quite a while, at least a year or so. I
know the guys pretty well. Now only Jeff & Donny and the latest
version of the band co-fronted by a young girl named Mandy. I didn’t
get a chance to meet her but rumor has it, that is in fact her name. I
don’t know the drummer (Matteo) or guitar player (Evan). But the
drumming was good n solid and it was the guitarists first night with the
band. It sounded fine to me. No real evidence of first night trainwrecks.
But not too guitar heavy music either. These guys have always projected
a ‘dance party’ vibe in
the past with a decent mix of 80’s, 90’s, and the present. Duran
Duran to the ‘Stacy’s Mom’ kinda stuff. I like to call it harmless
playful pop. Party bands always make me nervous cuz I’m not a ‘dance
party’ kinda guy. If this kind of band plays to a half empty room, all
of the credibility goes right out the window. This wasn’t the case
that night. It looked to me to be at least 150-200 people there, and I
later found out there were over 200, which is pretty damn good anywhere
on a Friday. Therefore they pulled it off AND covered the spread, so to
speak.
Jeff
was solid as usual and Donny has always sung this stuff well. He’s got
a tenor voice with a good clean tone kinda Simon LeBon like, but without
the whine. And the addition of the young tart named ‘Mandy’ gives
new life to this band. (NOTE:
‘tart’= a good thing….no dis-respect intended). The Madonna stuff
stood out. She’s got a good voice for the material, and she’s pretty
easy on the eyes also. But I’m like old enough to be her Dad so enough
of that.
Tech
stuff~
The
lighting was ok. It was fine, safe for that matter. All intelligent
stuff. No par cans. Good fit for the music. It looked pretty sharp.
Trevor
Powers was providing production & mixing the band as well. It was
really good. I mean it sounded really good. Trevor usually has a good grip on things, and this
wouldn’t be any different. Clean & punchy as hell.
Musically
speaking I didn’t hear any chances taken. The tunes they do don’t
allow it anyway. The Johnsons are definitely a ‘can’t go wrong’
cover band in my opinion.
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