w/ Nada Surf, Ozma

[review]

hey. i went to the show tonight at lawrence, hadn't heard of rilo kiley. i'm a fan now though. good tunes, good performance. and the icing on the cake was a cover of Modest Mouse's "Polar Opposites"! also in the ~10 song set was a cover of Crowded House, "Don't Dream it's Over."

ozma and nada surf were great too. nada surf was in great humor, and for an encore they asked jenny to come up on stage and sing a cover of Heart's "Magic Man" with them. i believe the RK bass player was playing lead guitar on the song.

come back soon, rilo!

-disconnex0r

[drewall128 corrects...]

Actually that was Ryen, lead guitar/vocals from Ozma, who played lead guitar on Magic Man

[another review]

I just watched the final show of the 2001 Nat. tour. Rilo is done touring with Ozma and Nada Surf for a while now. I was excited to see rk live after listening to both albums heavily for the last 6 months or so. They rocked hard. Concert attendies seemed to jam out to a few songs. I really loved the set (too short of course) and they warmed the place up well for Ozma (who smoked!) and I left before Nada Surf finished (long drive home and couldn't get into them). All in all a good night, worth 8 bucks and a 4 hour drive.

[a published review... link: http://fahrenheit128.com/cms/reviews/concert_reviews/nadasurf_w/_rilo_kiley__ozma_-_lawrence_ks_8/242001.html ]

Nadasurf w/ Rilo Kiley & Ozma - Lawrence, KS 8/24/2001
Written by Drew Allegre
Sunday, 26 August 2001

Rilo Kiley - This concert was my first Rilo Kiley experience. I was pretty skeptical before hand, but I came away quite impressed. I was fortunate enough to meet them and converse (a little) with them before the show, and they are all very nice, kind of soft spoken people. On-stage, their sound was clear and crisp, with a nice ratio of clean guitar and guitar effects.

The vocals were quite strong and clear and had sort of a country-esque vibe to them. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, there just wasn’t too much screaming involved. Their songs (the few that they played) were well-written and catchy…kind of light and simple, but with enough guitar work to keep one interested. One of the best things about their set is that they were all smiling and having a good time and drawing energy from each other. Their closer was a cover of Crowded House’s Don’t Dream It’s Over that was right on the mark…very cool indeed. I would pay real money to see these folks play again.

Ozma - The second band Ozma is the real reason for my attendance at this show. In fact, I’m pretty sure that more people were at the show to see Ozma than to see Nada Surf. They have some pretty decent momentum going from their new cd release and their recent tour with Weezer. If you’ve never heard Ozma, you should definitely check them out. They’re kind of from the geek/indie scene, but they aren’t totally one dimensional like indie bands often are. Ozma has two lead singers, two guitarists, bass guitar, keyboards, and a drummer. This adds up to a very full sound that didn’t come across amazingly well in a small venue like The Bottleneck. Nevertheless, they played very well and with a LOT of energy. I’m not sure how long their set was exactly, but it was pretty long. They really have some awesome songs. More than a few members of the crowd knew Ozma well enough to sing along, which was pretty cool.

Nada Surf - The guys from Nada Surf have been around for a while now, and unfortunately are mainly known for their hit single Popular from a few years back. Backstage the Nada Surf guys were very cool to hang out with, and they were clearly the leaders of this tour…sharing stories, opinions, and experience. They are an interesting trio; the drummer is the eccentric outgoing one, the lead singer is the quiet, focused one, and the bass player is one of those eat, drink, and be merry types. This was the final show of the tour for the three bands together, and everyone, especially the members of Nada Surf seemed sorry that it was coming to a close. Nada Surf didn’t play with quite as much energy as Ozma did, and were a bit overshadowed by Ozma’s performance. This is probably because they were playing to what was apparently mostly an Ozma crowd. The set was still quite cool though…just kind of relaxing. Matthew, the lead singer, made a few witty comments, one of the best of which was something along the lines of ‘we’re going to give you a 10 dollar show instead of an 8 dollar show.’ The closer really smoked and was done with the help of Rilo Kiley’s singer, Jenny, and Ozma’s lead guitarist, Ryen. Overall, it was a very good night for rock and roll with three down to earth (no MTV thank you) and very solid performances.