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Music on Campus
Fenway Park brings genre-defying music to the SUB
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Apparently pop music can sound unique, and Fenway Park proved it
during their performance at the Coffee House Concert Series in the
SUB last Thursday.
Fenway Park is a three-man band local to Berkeley, California,
but surprisingly foreign to genre labeling. They recently released
their debut album Full Contentment by Summer’s End, and while
often referred to as power-pop by their California fan base, there
are no trappings of any specific genre with the band. Instead,
Fenway Park incorporates rock, pop, punk, indie, emo, and
50’s classics, if you can imagine (and if not, humor me).
Each band member has his own sources of inspiration, ranging from
Weezer to The Ramones to The Get-Up Kids. Drummer Mikey Weinstein
admitted that he and vocalist Noah Singer carry admiration for
significantly distinct artists.
“We try to show that in our sound. Noah will sing
something and I’ll see what drumbeats I can bring to
it,” Weinstein said.
Somewhere around the band’s fourth song of the evening, it
became clear to me what Weinstein was talking about. Stylistic
inconsistency works well for Fenway Park; they keep their audience
guessing where the next song is headed. Although they integrate
vastly different influences, the band alternates between them all
with complete lack of restraint.
For starters, Fenway Park is emo-like with their catchy guitar
riffs and emotional lyrics, yet their energetic, poppy beat ends
the potential for full-throttle emo inclination. The song
“Opium” emits emo qualities by mixing rhythmic
drumbeats with slow guitar intervals. However, unlike emo’s
tendency for abstract lyrics, Singer’s vocals aren’t so
disorganized or haphazard that they’re difficult to
understand. Although the band admits there is a literary allusion
present in the song “Sally Hayes,” Singer was hesitant
to disclose details. “Well, yeah…I guess.
There’s an allusion there, sure.”
Most of Fenway Park’s lyrics are about girls and
relationships, yet Singer is not angry or bitter in his vocal
delivery. In fact the whole band seems optimistic, as Singer shot
sporadic grins at the audience while singing “Sometimes Girls
Just Leave.”
rhythm sections and occasional slow acoustic jingles.
Singer’s voice is a mix of melodic lullaby and Weezer-rock,
and bassist Dustin Erwin complements the band’s ambiguous
tone with his backup vocals. Weinstein’s drumbeats in
“Be Here Now” and “Letter” unmistakably
provide the bursts of punk rock that give the band a danceable
characteristic. At Thursday’s show Fenway Park even performed
“Be True To Your School” for those relentless in
bringing back Beach Boys covers (all of you–out of the gene
pool!).
“We decided to play the worst song they ever wrote just to
prove we could actually do that and do it well,” Singer
explained.
To give one more element of variety, the band demonstrates their
classic 50’s influence by adding the sunshiny song “El
Sueno” to the album’s lineup. This musical mobility is
exactly what makes Fenway Park so difficult to classify, and
exactly what makes their fans appreciate them.
So what’s the deal with the name Fenway Park? Why do they
associate themselves with the Boston stadium? For one thing, the
name convinces people they already know about this up-and-coming
band (“Oh yeah, I’ve heard of those guys.”
Umm…no. Unless you frequent the local California scene, you
are lying). However when I asked bassist Erwin what the story was,
he told me that Singer has some nostalgic connection with the
renowned stadium. “I think he spent a lot of time there, or
he’s a Red Sox fan or something.”
Singer also appears to hold a soft spot for cereal, as his
guitar sports a colorful collage of the popular breakfast item. He
made it himself and is proud of his creation. “Well it looks
good from 10 feet away.”
Each member brings a unique charm to the band that seems to
appeal to a younger teenage crowd. Yet many of their tour venues
are college campuses and places where older people convene. So far,
Fenway Park has completed a week of their month-long tour and was
headed to Salt Lake City next. Appreciative of the opportunity to
be on tour and get their name out there, the band was already
growing weary of driving. “It’s tiring, but still
awesome,” Erwin laughed. “It’s weird, we seem to
get the best crowds in the towns we least expect them and vice
versa.” Chalk that up to one more ambiguity of the band.
Their album Full Contentment by Summer’s End is
self-produced and offers ten songs, all written by Singer. While
the band pours forth many elements of power-pop, don’t
mistake their pop music qualities with conformity. Fenway Park is
full of surprises and they leave themselves open to interpretation.
They are a band still developing and capable of creating a sound of
their own. My suggestion to prospective fans is to check these guys
out before the music industry catches wind of them and attempts to
minimize their sound and beat them with the boy band stick. Fenway
Park deserves more credit than that.
Crystal Thomas
A&E Writer
The Arbiter
