By Liz Lincoln Steiner Editorial Assistant Published Jul 10, 2016 at 3:04 AM Photography: David Bernacchi

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For a seasoned touring band like the Barenaked Ladies, I expected them to be stronger at working the crowd. And while they did loosen up and move away from their spots at their microphones more in the second half of the show, the first half often felt dialed in. I got the impression perhaps they've been touring a little too much. Even the humorous between-song banter between guitarist and lead vocalist Ed Robertson and guitarist-keyboardist-accordion player Kevin Hearn sometimes felt like memorized lines rather than spontaneous conversation.

They weren't helped any by issues with sound quality. Every other show I've attended at the BMO Harris Pavilion has been acoustically fantastic. But for a handful of songs Saturday night, Robertson's lyrics were so muddled, it sounded like he was trying to sing with the microphone shoved in his mouth. For several others, the words at times blurred together into an indistinct garble of syllables.

For the song "Watching the Northern Lights," Hearn has a keyboard solo that's lovely on the recorded version. Tonight, however, the levels were set in such a way that the notes were shrill and painful. This wasn't just my experience; my friend turned to me to say it was "kinda painful." Around us, audience members were wincing.

This has, of course, nothing to do with the band's musical talent nor their performance ability. But it did detract from the overall quality of the concert experience.

Between the lackluster performance, the sound issues and the general sense of the audience being underwhelmed, by the time we were nine songs in, I was ready to give the Barenaked Ladies a solid grade of "Meh." To that point, only "Brian Wilson" got most of the crowd on their feet and dancing, or at least swaying.

For the tenth song, they mentioned they've been touring with OMD and Howard Jones, the two acts who performed at the BMO prior to them (you can read Andy Tarnoff's review of Howard Jones here). Robertson noted that Jones often doesn't play one of his biggest hits. "I don't know who's to blame for that." Then Jones joined the band on stage to assure the audience that "No One is to Blame."

 

 

After Jones, the Ladies Sans Clothing launched into a series of three lively songs played back-to-back-to-back with no break or banter in between. Apparently the crowd took Ms. Kulinski's above tweet to heart, as for the first time, most got to their feet and started singing along, swaying or bobbing their heads, some even outright dancing. During "Pinch Me," the lines "I could hide out under there/I just made you say 'underwear'" even got a cheer, and I heard a few giggles around me.

The energy and momentum they built took a few steps backward when they slowed things down for the aforementioned "Watching the Northern Lights," but after that, the band truly hit their stride. For the remaining five songs, plus the encore, the band kept up the enthusiasm, the crowd kept up theirs and the show as a whole became vastly more entertaining. This last section was when they broke out their two best-known hits, "Big Bang Theory," the theme song to the show of the same name, and "One Week," which spent – go figure – one week at number one on the Billboard chart.

Their final song was one of their signature rap medleys, which is exactly what it sounds like. Robertson raps a medley of several well-known songs, which tonight included "Lean on Me," "My Love Will Go On," "You Are So Beautiful," the "Near-Far" song from "Sesame Street" and more. The medley ended with the "Imperial March," at which point Darth Vader briefly joined them on stage. Because why not?

For the three-song encore, Robertson took a seat behind the drums, and drummer Tyler Stewart took over vocal duty. After a medley of three of their songs followed by a Led Zeppelin cover, Tyler told the crowd that the band has been together 27 years. "We're gonna keep going and going and going. And you're gonna keep coming and coming and coming … that's what she said." And they launched into a cover of "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes.

And really, even after a lackluster start, I can't think of a better ending note.

Set list:

"Testing 1, 2, 3"
"Smile"
"Hello City"
"Narrow Streets"
"I Can Sing"
"Sound of Your Voice"
"Brian Wilson"
"Gonna Walk"
"Keepin' It Real"
"No One is to Blame" (with guest Howard Jones)
"Duct Tape Heart"
"The Old Apartment"
"Pinch Me"
"Watching the Northern Lights"
"Odds Are"
"Big Bang Theory"
"One Week"
"If I Had $1,000,000"
"BNL Rap"

Encore:
"Allergies/I Wanna Be Sedated/Alcohol"
"Rock and Roll" (Led Zeppelin cover)
"Blister in the Sun" (Violent Femmes cover)

Liz Lincoln Steiner Editorial Assistant
Liz has been in Milwaukee for almost a decade, after growing up in Madison. It's possible she might like her adopted hometown better, but she would never admit that to her mom. When she's not slaving away at OnMilwaukee, she's probably watching a football game, cross stitching something profane, writing one of the romance novels she publishes under the highly secret nome de plume, Eliza Madison, or some combination thereof. Whatever she's doing, she's drinking Diet Coke.