We are pulling into the middle of July and that can only mean one thing in Chicago: festivals. They're massive events designed for thousands—neighborhood shindigs, itty-bitty one-day gatherings, and new, old, traditional, and reconfigured blow-outs by the score. At this time of year in this town, if you can't find an outdoor attraction that strikes your fancy, then there is something terribly wrong with you.
This brings us to the opening two shows of the 35th edition of A Taste of Chicago, which, after 2014's dismal attendance, aimed to please as many people as possible. Those shows were headlined by two crowd-pleasers ( Weezer and Erykah Badu ) and one wild card ( Trombone Shorty ). You couldn't call these booking daring or unexpected ( if you want "eclectic" go to the Pitchfork Music Festival ), they were all about pleasing the masses. ( The Chieftains and Maze featuring Frankie Beverly were the other performers. )
Weezer—in particular, front man Rivers Cuomo—became the darlings of '90s alternative rock by looking nerdy, writing great songs and building a reputation as a killer act onstage. With an early track record of excellent albums ( The Blue Album, Pinkerton, The Green Album ) and a string of high-quality radio hits ( "Pork and Beans," "Hash Pipe," "Beverly Hills" ), they made the first half of that decade a sonic pleasure. Unfortunately, the show at The Petrillo Band Shell in Grant Park on July 8 felt like such a disappointment. It wasn't as if they did not deliver, or that they sounded off—this show had everything to do with engagement and they hardly seemed to be there at all.
Weezer looked positively comatose for the first half of the set and, with the expected string of old favorites, they and the show came off as routine. Sleepy Cuomo finally came to life during a blistering "Say It Ain't So" and, during midpoint of "Beverly Hills," the rest of the band followed his lead. The high point of the night came with a new unreleased song, "Go Away," which had the ring of an old Del Shannon hit for a modern era. Surprisingly, the opening-night crowd stayed on its feet the entire wet set and lapped it up, which implies that "routine" was just fine with the audience members.
If Weezer seemed to be constrained and bored, Badu almost went to the opposite extreme by constantly tripping into goofiness during her show July 9. Like Weezer, Badu relied on her discography to present an eclectic evening of some of her best work. If this could be expected ( she has not released a new CD in years ), it could not be called predictable or routine, since she clearly loves what she does in front of an adoring audience. Hitting the stage with "Twenty Feet Tall," Badu revisited all of her albums and offered a grab bag of delights ( "Didn't Cha Know?," "Bag Lady," "Apple Tree" ), and just hearing that slightly ragged rasp in her slightly lazy voice enthralled the sold-out crowd.
Then came the jokes, which started out as funny and snappy, until they kept popping up in, and derailing songs unexpectedly. The version of "Tyrone"—which she whipped out near the close of the night—was an example of her at her best and worst. As one of her earliest hits, the recording, which is half-spoken, is an exquisite example of her unique phrasing and tone. Every time I have heard her sing it in concert in the past decade, she has done something new and refreshing with it, which accounts for how the song has become such a highlight. At the Taste, she jumped right into it but then got sidetracked with a protracted joke about performing a striptease. Her audience went along with it but the joke killed the song.
Ironically, the most spontaneous and electrifying performance onstage for both days was Trombone Shorty's opening set for Badu. As a smiling young man filled with music and joy as well as the non-stop energy of a bag of cats, he seemed to love performing as much as Badu. Backed by his band, who seemed just as frisky as he was, he made his set set one big, loud, spontaneous combustion.
Shorty is clearly proud of his hometown ( New Orleans ) and showed it with a set that melded soul, jazz, ragtime, funk, rock and gospel in a hip-shaking stew. When he tackled Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On," even that 40-year-old chestnut sounded like something new. The most humorous aspect of his performance was that before he went onstage no one in the audience ( and most of the photographers in the pit ) had an idea who he was. By the middle of his second song, he had the entire seated section of the Petrillo Music Shell up and dancing with a vengeance.
