One of the absolute best qualities of the Seattle music scene is the refusal of successful local bands to forget the local scene, where it all started. The mutual respect between the bands, fans and venues is abundant, most of the time. At the High Dive, located in Fremont, Center of the Universe, fans were treated to yet another reminder of what makes Seattle's music scene so unique. Brad took to the High Dive stage Tuesday night in an intimate show to celebrate the release of Best Friends?, their first album in eight years.
Brad is most often billed as Stone Gossard's side project when he's not busy with Pearl Jam, but they're so much more than that. In reality, Stone is a small part of the equation. Brad is principally the project of vocalist/keyboardist Shawn Smith.
While the audience was still filtering in, the show started off by featuring Stone Gossard (guitar) and Keith Lowe (bass) joining forces with a vocalist named Barb and opening up for themselves as Stone, Keith and Barb. They played four songs. Gossard sung lead on two with a rootsy, almost country inflection. Barb's vocals were strong and complemented perfectly by Gossard's understated guitar and Lowe's upright bass/cello. The last song supposedly contained an important message about salmon hatcheries hidden somewhere in-between or under the ridiculous lyrics. After their set ended, anticipation grew and the stage was set for the main event.
Shawn Smith and Brad, Gossard, Lowe, Regan Hagar (drums) and Mike Berg (keyboards) took the stage to enthusiastic cheers. Immediately Smith's personality and sense of humor shone through when he addressed the crowd by telling us that he'd used up all his bible jokes so he wouldn't do another one.
Once situated, they kicked off with "Believe in Yourself," an uplifting piano based ballad and first single off of Best Friends?.
Brad was at the top of their game. The music was tight and Smith's vocals were spot on. On "Never Let Each Other Down" Smith's soulful vocals were perfectly framed by the music.
"Every Whisper" started off sounding like a slightly more soulful version of Blues Traveler. It was the first song to showcase the guitar work of Gossard with a soaring, slow tempo guitar solo that picked up pace on it's way to turning into a full band jam.
They followed this up with "Oh My Goodness," a faster, punk inflected number that turned the energy dial up to 11 and got the crowd moving and shaking. At the end of the song Smith faked running to the side of the stage, treating fans to what he said was his best Steven Tyler impression.
"Bless Me" is a smoky acoustic song. The lyrics seem to be intensely personal and Smith delivered them as such. It's a song about hiding from responsibilities and pressures of the past and the narrator's determination to not hide anymore.
Brad played a good mix of material including selections from their 1993 debut, Shame. The early 90's anthemic quality of "Good News," the bass heavy funk of "20th Century" and the laid back "Buttercup" fit well in the set next to the new stuff.
Towards the end of the full-band set they broke into their catchy as hell, piano based, mid-nineties hit "The Day Brings." This is the song that caught everyone's attention, including that of myself, back in 1996 and served as the bait to hook them as fans of Brad. It was in top form here.
The full band left the stage and Smith reemerged for a solo encore. Just Shawn, his voice and a piano.
Sadly, some disrespectful audience members at the back of the High Dive talked so loudly, you could hear them even at the front of the stage, over the music; the distracting noise even forced Smith to restart a couple of songs. He even asked them to "Be quiet" and then to "Shut the fuck up," both to no avail. It put a slight mark on what had so far been an entertaining, at times masterful, at times informal performance. This was one of the rare times when the mutual respect between all parties didn't apply.
He closed out the set with a hilariously and horribly butchered version of "Purple Rain." The verses that he pulled off were great but in my personal opinion, I would stick with Prince on that one.
It was a wonderful night of local music, the new stuff sounded great and the opportunity to see Brad play in a venue as small and intimate as the High Dive made it all the more special. I'm sure ninety percent of the audience would agree.
