Winds Howling

Last night Camilla and I went to see Weezer play at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.

The show was part of a tour called “The Gathering” to promote their new self-titled “Gold Album,” which I gave a five-star review on this blog just a few weeks ago. I quickly fell in love with the band, whipped through the rest of their discography and even managed to get Camilla into it. It’s been a fun couple of weeks — we’ve both had four or five Weezer songs stuck in our heads at any given time.

I made sure to bring my earplugs, because I figured this would be a loud show, but I never ended up using them. Weezer was louder than the openers, but all three bands were at nice, digestible volume levels for me. The trouble I had was with the mix, or the acoustics, or both — there was a too-reverby, shoegazey sheen over all the music, and there were plenty of times I couldn’t hear Rivers Cuomo’s voice in the mix, try as I might.

Weezer played for about an hour and 40 minutes, stopping every once in a while for a little skit or joke. They played in a mock-up front yard of a house, out of which guest singer Nikki Monninger emerged for three duets toward the end.

They played a total of 26 songs, one of which was the live debut of “Say Yes,” the first track on the new album. They’ve been playing different songs from the new album from night to night; a few nights before, the final track of the album had its debut.

Lots of people in the audience were wearing all blue, even though it’s the new Gold album that brought us here.

The crowd skewed Gen X and younger, with plenty of families with young kids walking around. Camilla and I sat between an extremely Gen Z boyfriend/girlfriend and a father whose daughter had dragged him there. A couple of young girls behind us were absolutely screeching along to most of what Cuomo sang, just far enough away from me that it was endearing instead of annoying.

Weezer tweaked a couple lyrics to make crowd-pleasing Detroit references, changing the “Green Day concert” to a “White Stripes concert” and the “half Japanese girls” to “half Detroit girls” in “El Scorcho,” and one of the “Beverly Hills” in “Beverly Hills” to “Detroit, Michigan.”

There was also a bit where the “power went out” on stage, setting them up for a couple of acoustic songs. As part of the bit, the band placed a call to “Detroit Power” and got put on hold by a robot voice. I guess they just slot in city names instead of naming actual power companies; people in the crowd grumbled their own jokes about the actual power company around here, DTE.

There were two opening bands, neither of which I was familiar with: Silversun Pickups and The Shins.

Silversun Pickups was at least interesting. The murky mix seemed appropriate for their angsty wall of sound. I couldn’t tell if the singer’s vocal style was good weird or bad weird — kind of gruff and whiny at the same time. They played for about a half hour, which was the right dosage. Their bassist was actually Nikki Monninger, who sang with Weezer later in the night.

The Shins played music that was somewhat more legible as pop rock; one song even made Camilla say, “OK, Target commercial!”

This band played for 50 minutes, which was, frankly, far too long. They almost put me to sleep with what I figured had to be their last song, but it turned out to be third from last. For the first time in my concert-going career, I gave a half-genuine boo when they reached the end of what they said would be their “last song” but then launched into a short cover of “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” A girl who may have been a Shins fan gave me the evil eye.

One weird note — there was a smoky haze in the air throughout Little Caesars Arena all night, noticeable immediately upon walking in. It didn’t smell like anything. I assumed it was safe to be in the building, but it was kind of off-putting. I thought maybe it was fake campfire smoke to match the “Gathering” theme, but a quick Google suggested that wasn’t it. The mystery remains unsolved.