If George Bush had lost the election to Al Gore, it’s quite possible Everclear wouldn’t be rolling into Madison tonight in a bid to blow the roof off the Barrymore. The huge crossover success of 2000’s grinning Songs From An American Movie Volume 1: Learning How To Smile was sharply rebuked a few months later by the snarl of Volume 2: Good Time For A Bad Attitude, which is exactly what the election of George Bush had the band feeling. Everclear decided to forgo an extended hiatus and go to work on expressing its Republican resentment on Slowmotion Daydream, due this January.
Due to the band’s normally upbeat, yet edgy, pop-rock sound, it comes as a shock to most fair-weather fans that Everclear possess an innate, almost undetectable angst that nicely sours the candy coating encasing its blend of rock that sounds like the Beach Boys being assaulted by punk rock. Everclear’s catalogue is in constant flux, shifting between pop melodies and saturated distortions. The latent angst of the band’s tracks is conveyed through lead singer Art Alexakis’ bittersweet lyrics, stuck somewhere between nostalgic and acidic.
Most of the vitriol in Everclear’s new and more scornful tunes is directed towards the right-wing fat cats that riled against the circumstances Alexakis and the rest of Everclear (bassist Craig Montoya and drummer Greg Eklund) grew up in as youngsters. It’s interesting though, that in a new track, “Volvo Driving Soccer Mom,” Alexakis takes a swipe at once-wild women who move to the suburbs and become Republicans, when he himself has taken part in inviting Rolling Stone to his California home to show off his big screen TV and art-deco furniture — a hardly common-man move that would seem just as offensive as driving the comfortable tank that is a Volvo.
The irony is that the platinum threesome are all multimillionaires now, a circumstance that complicates their anti-rich politician image. Granted, Everclear’s political positions aren’t as in-your-face as celebrity Democrats like Martin “I think I’m really the president” Sheen or Barbara “I make ice cubes out of Cristal” Streisand, but Slowmotion Daydream will definitely find a nice audience in a liberal town like Madison.
Everclear is all about dichotomy, though — the heavy rock with pop undertones, the Republican lifestyle and the Democratic viewpoint, and the lyrical nostalgia for the past coupled with rough childhoods. It’s this mix of tones and views that propels the band and has made it a success until this point.
Everclear is magnetic in the live setting, though, with full understanding that pretentiousness gets you nowhere. The band members work hard for their audience, not taking anything for granted. There is still a fresh vigor to the visceral tracks from their major-label breakout, Sparkle and Fade, and solid resonance on their impressive follow-up, So Much For The Afterglow. Volume 1 and Volume 2 have their place, but the material from the forthcoming Slowmotion Daydream is the focus tonight. The historic Barrymore will be brimming with energy as in-your-face as the rock coming from the speakers. The only thing Everclear’s sure-to-please performance will lack is a large group of registered Republicans.
Everclear plays the Barrymore Theatre, 2090 Atwood Ave., tonight at 7:30 p.m.
