Hootie & The Blowfish with Special Guest Barenaked Ladies Group Therapy Tour at Riverbend Music Center was the first show to sell out this season at Riverbend. Surprised? I am not. We love our 90’s nostalgia (heck…all nostalgia) here in Cincinnati and we show up in droves to support it. I am one of those folks.
Check out photos from the show!
Barenaked Ladies have been one of my all-time favorite bands since the first time I heard them. I believe “The Old Apartment” was the first song I heard by BNL. In typical Courtney fashion, I went out and bought up all of their cd’s (pre-streaming days). To this day, Rock Spectacle (1996 Enhanced version) is still one of my go-to albums. Over the course of their over 30-year-time as a band, they have racked up 2 Grammy nominations, won 8 JUNO Awards, have sold over 15 million albums, and Ben & Jerry’s named an ice cream after them (“If I Had 1,000,000 Flavours”)!
Thirty years in, and Barenaked Ladies still haven’t lost their goofy sense of humor on stage. The group rolled through the hits such as; “It’s All Been Done,” “Pinch Me,” “One Week,” “The Old Apartment,” and even a full version of “The Big Bang Theory” theme, complete with a gnarly keyboard solo by Kevin Hearn.
Barenaked Ladies brought the crowd to their feet with several covers, a tongue-in-cheek pop medley of “Shallow (while Ed Robertson gently caressed a man’s bald head in the front row), Old Town Road, Sicko Mode and High Hopes;” then an excellent set-closing cover of “Whole Lotta Love / Another One Bites the Dust” led by drummer Tyler Stewart. They even came back out with Hootie to sing “With a Little Help From My Friends.” But as with every Barenaked Ladies show, the crowd favorite was, “If I had a $1000000.” Even the staff at Riverbend were singing along.
Hootie & The Blowfish owned the radio in the mid-90’s. Their debut album, Cracked Rear View sold over 16 million copies in the U.S. alone. The band also garnered two Grammy’s for the album – “Best New Artist” and “Song of the Year.”
HOOTIE! Darius Rucker and the boys hit the stage and we were all ready for it. To say it was hot was an understatement, but after over a decade hiatus from the band, no one was going to let the weather be a factor in their evening. Almost immediately, it was easy to get swept away by the band's tight harmonies and crunchy guitar solos, making it hard to believe they even took a break at all.
Rucker decked out in a Cincinnati Reds ballcap, reflected on how great it felt to be back on the road with Hootie & the Blowfish only to joke that they aren’t the young men they once were, "We didn't start out in high school."
This year marks the 25th Anniversary of their debut album, Cracked Rear View and they did not disappoint in bringing out the classics such as; “I Go Blind,” “Hold My Hand,” “Let Her Cry,” to the relatively deep, “Drowning,” and “Time.” The guy to my left lost his mind to “Time.” I am really glad they played that one for that guy.
Rucker paid tribute to his favorite band, R.E.M. by singing “Losing My Religion” They took Old Man and Me (When I Get to Heaven)” and sprinted with it, splicing in snippets of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” and Earth, Wind and Fire’s “Shining Star.” Darius stated he refused to sing this song on tour but then he busted into “Wagon Wheel.”
It has been said that this will be the last tour for Hootie and The Blowfish, but after seeing how happy they all looked on stage, I would say perhaps we can keep hoping for one more tour.
