Review: One Republic

Above: Ryan Tedder, the leader and CEO of OneRepublic. Photos by Chuck France/Special to The Star

The Madrid Theater was sold-out Saturday night. I hadn't seen it so full since Regina Spektor played there in 2006. Or the VIolent Femmes or X before her. The headliner was OneRepublic, an all-male band from Colorado Springs popular for a hit song ("Apologize") and its re-mixed connection to one of the most fashionable producers in the music biz today.

Thanks to that connection to Timbaland and to the viral power of MySpace, the band and the song have stirred up the kind of rabid hype that prompts people to go out on frigid Saturday night and plunk down $18 on a band with two popular songs in its repertoire: "Apologize" and the follow-up single, "Stop and Stare." If you've heard neither, you've still heard OneRepublics brand of pop: They sound a lot like the Fray with recurring bits of U2 and Coldplay dropped into the mix.

Ryan Tedder is the leader, chief vocalist and sole spokesman for OneRepublic. He's writes songs, too, for his band and other artists (he wrote Natasha Bedingfield's current hit, "Love Like This," featuring Sean Kingston. He's a talented guy, musically: singer, songwriter, musician, producer. He's not so smooth as a spokesman, though, which was his band's chief problem Saturday  night, but we'll get to that later.

Above: Eric Hutchinson gets the crowd primed for the headliner.

If all that background is a little TMI for you, well, sorry. But it serves to explain why the mood in the place was crackling before the headliner took the stage a few minutes before 10 p.m. Two bands opened the show, the Daylights from Los Angeles and then Eric Hutchinson, a singer/songwriter whose style is bright and funky enough to allow him to get away with tossing a bit of R.Kelly ("Ignition Remix") into his Temptations cover.

He doesn't sound explicitly like either, but you can  understand why he favors and/or tours with acts like Maroon 5 and G. Love. His live performance was memorable. He's personable and energetic. For a guy playing to a big room of people, most of whom knew little or nothing about him, he and his band left a warm and positive impression.

OneRepublic? Not as much. They guys played for about 85-90 minutes, and the crowd was with them for the first 30 minutes or so, even through songs that weren't so familiar. Their sound is pleasant: suburban adult-alt pop-and-soul. But even with an electric cellist in its midst (Brent Kutzle), OneRepublic didn't generate one of those arresting or defining moments. Once the initial charm wore off, the crowd slowly lost interest, at least where I was standing -- up in the balcony, then on the floor by the soundboard. Way up front, the band was still getting some screams and cheers, but farther back, people were chatting among themselves, some loudly, waiting for the big moments,

They would come: The creamy adult-alt rock ballad "Stop and Stare" and then the warm and trippy "Apologize" -- two well-crafted songs that deserve to be hits. When Tedder started the intro to "Apologize," most people in the back of the room stopped talking (to each other or into cell phones) and moved toward the stage, and a heavy stream of fans trotted in from the lobby and crowded bar area. Once "Apologize" was done, a slow trickle of fans left the main room; many of them headed for the exits.

Those who stayed (and about three-fourths of them did) got more of the same: pleasant music from a talented band with virtually no stage presence or personality. If anyone was dancing beyond a slow sway, they must have been up front. I didn't see any all night.

And that was too bad. The crowd seemed thirsty for a connection, for something visceral or primal. But this performance was void of that. When you have to send a roadie on stage to crank up the crowd to encourage the band to come back out for its encore, you should assume the problem is yours, not the crowd's.

The first part of the encore featured just Tedder and Kutzle -- an unplugged  moment. They spent several minutes figuring out a way for Tedder to get a stool. Finally, Kutzle put down his cello, got up and walked behind the drum kit and brought a stool to the front of the stage. No one made light of it or anything. But it sucked more steam and momentum out of the show. So did the long and hard-to-follow intro to a good song, "Come Home" (I think), written for a friend who'd gone to Iraq and back. The acoustics could have been part of the problem. I had a hard time hearing/understanding nearly everything Tedder said all night.

I'm not sure what the solution is. More personality would help. They could take a cue from Eric Hutchinson and drop in a surprise cover or two, at least until they have more than two of three songs for people to look forward to during a 90-minute set. A U2 cover would be natural; a Hall & Oates or an Ohio Player's cover (or something with real, old-school funk and soul in it) would be a cool surprise.

Tedder is a talented guy; he's learned all the biggies -- how to play several instruments, how to write hit songs; how sing; how to produce. He could stand a few lessons in how to ignite a sold-out crowd that is begging to be set on fire.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[oliver kay]

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