PHOTOS
Lisa Sokolowski
The crowd was filled with young women, most of whom were probably in elementary school when Hanson's major label debut dropped over a decade ago. When "MMMBop" was played each hour on every Top 40 radio station, they were just kids, worried about things like middle school.
That goes for both Hanson, and its fans.
And the greatest part about Hanson's show at the Crocodile Rock in Allentown last Friday - aside from the musicality and genuineness of the band - was the way the music transported the audience back to that simpler, happier time.
Hanson's two-hour-long set in front of a soldout crowd was filled with 20 songs, plus two in the encore. The band - guitarist Isaac, keyboardist/vocalist Taylor, and drummer Zac - split the songs into three sets, beginning the first electric set with the band's latest single "The Great Divide."
The Tulsa-based band could have used that moment as its soapbox - the proceeds from the tune help combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa - but the band waited. Instead, it went seamlessly into the rest of the set, which was filled with the band's super saccharine infectious pop songs and littered with covers of bands like The Rolling Stones and The Police.
After six plugged-in songs, guitarist/keyboardist Dimitrius Collins and bassist William Birckhead, who filled in the rhythm section, left and the three brothers moved to chairs on the front of the stage for a five-song acoustic set.
The sound boards were silent, but the crowd wasn't. The mood was serene, though, kind of like campfire sing-along.
Taylor stood over the keyboard, singing Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine," and he sang with so much emotion, you really did believe his sunshine lacks when the Mrs. is away. That's how it should be when a band is stripped down and raw.
Maybe Zac, the youngest of the trio, should have been singing that song. Any distractedness that he had could be chalked up to nesting. His wife, Kate, is due to pop out their first child at any moment.
Instead, the drummer was alone on the piano to close the acoustic set with "You're Enough," two songs after what most people were waiting for: "MMMBop."
The band officially celebrated the 11-year anniversary of
Middle Of Nowhere (the album with "MMMBop") on Tuesday, and, even after all this time, the joyfulness of it hasn't faded. The crowd went absolutely wild during the song; if Hanson had left the stage right then, the audience would have been satisfied.
The band played a nine-song electric set to finish off the night, highlighted by women crying during "With You In Your Dreams;" tossing Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" into "If Only;" and crowd favorite "Lost Without Each Other," which had pretty falsetto notes and a chorus that kept the audience bopping, or mmmbopping, if you will. It made everyone smile so ridiculously much, as did much of the set.
The band played a two-song encore รข- "This Time Around" and "The Ugly Truth," the latter of which was an awkward way to end such an uplifting night (a song about a cheating beau is a strange finish, even if the song is from the
Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj soundtrack).
Thank goodness that wasn't quite the finale.
The group of five bowed together, then Collins and Birckhead left, leaving the Hanson men. This is when the stage turned to Taylor's soapbox, giving him the opportunity to talk about Africa and Toms shoes. A one-mile barefoot walk in Allentown marked the band's 64th mile, he said, and in those miles, there's hope that some walkers learned what it's like to be shoeless and bought a pair of Toms (which donates a pair to a child in Africa for every pair purchased).
And then, so the show didn't end on a Public Service Announcement, the brothers sang the chorus of "The Great Divide" a cappella.
It took a while to leave - a sold-out house doesn't empty quickly - but no one was rushing out the door, even though it was after midnight. That didn't matter; at this age, Hanson's crowd doesn't have a curfew anymore.