We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It

OK Go outshines top act Kicks Snow Patrol’s Motherfuckin’ Ass!

BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Saturday at the Tweeter Center, it was OK Go’s night; Snow Patrol just headlined it.Snow Patrol, as you may well known, is the British band that had huge, ubiquitous hits with “Run” (a.k.a. the “Light Up” song) and “Chasing Cars,” which, thanks to some emotionally pitched placement in movies and TV dramas, have become suburban anthems for minivan malcontents everywhere – the kind of songs that make you want to open up the moon roof and pump your fist in the air.

That’s the good news.The bad news is that Snow Patrol has little more to offer than variations on that very same songwriting template, repeated over the course of a 90-minute headlining slot, to diminishing returns. The light show was excellent, though.

Too many little indie bands of promise, when given the opening slot on shows like this, get swallowed up by the sheer enormity of the crowds and, for all their well-intended efforts, wind up making little or no impression beyond providing the soundtrack for the beer line. OK Go, which has risen to YouTube stardom with its wonderfully ridiculous gymnastic treadmill video, does not suffer from such a charisma deficit.

Not only do members seem blessed with natural ability to rock the big rooms with their crisp, catchy and tight-as-a-drum garage rock, but frontman Damian Kulash has a knack for connecting with the audience between songs and spreading OK Go’s innate sense of rock ‘n’ roll fun as if it’s the common cold – whether leading the capacity crowd through the Wave (“You just don’t get to do that at indie-rock shows,” Kulash said) or getting the kids to light up the night with their cell phones during a smoking version of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Don’t Bring Me Down.”

Before closing out a stellar set with “Here We Go,” (the treadmill video song), Kulash told the crowd that song has recently been covered by Kidz Bop, a collective of tykes performing grown-up rock songs. “This is a song that’s basically about waking up in the stupor of a hangover after a one-night stand and asking yourself, ‘What the hell just happened?’ Now, are there any 8-year-olds that know what that feels like? And the ones that do, do you really want them covering your song?”