Everclear as a pop-punk trio of the 1990’s and in the studio recently took to the stage as a powerhouse quintet. This Fall Art Alexakis’ band is wrapping up a headlining tour of college campuses quaintly entitled “Back to School Tour.” Earlier in the year the band was opening shows for Matchbox Twenty.
On Sept. 30 the modified band showed up onstage at Quinnipiac’s Burt Kahn Gymnasium shortly after 9 p.m. Several hundred students and local patrons made it to the show despite the drizzly rain. The night openers were Quinnipiac Juniors’ band Katence.
The gymnasium event was arranged differently for the show compared to last year’s May Weekend performances. The only seats were on the near side of the gym walking in from the lobby. The general admission seats provided standing only room with the stage set along the opposite wall’s length of the gym. Walking in, the stage-wall was garnished with Everclear’s large blue and white American flag covering the backdrop of the seemingly wider stage.
The band took off with a raucous select array of their neo-grunged punk songs. Songs like “Heroin Girl” and the recent “When It All Goes Wrong Again” assembled a substantial mosh pit in front of the center stage.
The Everclear pop song plucked into the show with songs like “I Will Buy You a New Life” the somber “Wonderful” and “Father of Mine” and the show-closer “Santa Monica.” With the closing songs of their encore, Art invited a select few students up on stage with the band who fought their way up to the front. Confident of their singing along, the on-stage addition to the band was a pleasant closure to a nicely done show by the premier band of the post-grunge array of rock bands.
In an interview with Alexakis after the band’s soundcheck, he was asked about the current state of the American people and how he feels after Sept. 11. “I’m an American, and I have a flag up outside at my house. We need justice, definitely, but we don’t need revenge. To me it’s about being more congnizant in real life and that we live in a country and that we’re no longer in this fantasy land of walking around totally safe,” he said.