ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 8, 1996 TAG: 9604100018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: CONCERT REVIEW
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
Bush may not be terribly original or particularly musical, but it's a band that sure packs a sonic wallop.
Its impact is like a sledgehammer to the frontal lobe, which was both its best attribute and its most glaring weakness Saturday night when the British alternative band played the Roanoke Civic Center coliseum.
It was a big night for Bush, with a capacity crowd of 9,050 on hand that exceeded what promoters had anticipated for Roanoke. Perhaps this had something to do with Bush pinup boy Gavin Rossdale gracing the cover of Rolling Stone magazine last week.
Or the 3 million copies Bush has sold of its debut album, ``Sixteen Stone.''
Either way, Rossdale acknowledged the sizable crowd. ``I knew there was something about this place when we came in here,'' he said in his English accent.
Certainly, from a giant-rock-grungefest, sheer-sonic-assault-on-the-senses standpoint, Rossdale and his Bush mates, guitarist Nigel Pulsford, bassist Dave Parsons and drummer Robin Goodridge, delivered the goods.
Saturday's show was just about as fast and frantic and ferocious as rock music gets. Bush crunched, like granite-on-granite amplified beyond logical tolerance. And Rossdale milked the grunge hero persona for all the angst it was worth.
In fact, you could say Rossdale and company have mastered the genre, although it's questionable whether they harbor the same authenticity as Nirvana or Pearl Jam or scores of other groups. Still, judging from their reception in Roanoke Saturday, they are crowd-pleasers extraordinaire.
But that was also the problem.
As popular as their schtick is as a soundtrack for today's fashionable moshing, body-surfing and hair-thrashing, ultimately, at its core, there just isn't much music or purpose behind the relentless throb. It has no soul, no meaning.
It's sort of fun at a primal level, but it isn't very satisfying. Sort of like fast food.
It's forgettable.
And lyrically? Forget it. As with many grunge acts, particularly in a concert setting, any message, other than the liberal use by Rossdale of the F-word, got lost in the attack. The only real exception to this was the quieter, more melodic ``Glycerine'' that Rossdale performed solo as an encore without the rest of Bush's sonic cast.
Second on the bill Saturday was the Goo Goo Dolls.
Fronted by guitarist Johnny Rzeznik and bassist Robby Takac, who traded off on lead vocals, this tight, equally sonic Buffalo-based trio provided the perfect hyperkinetic warmup for the moshers and body-surfers there for Bush.
Like ``Glycerine'' did for the headliners, the Goo Goo's biggest cheers came on the band's one radio hit, ``Name.''
Also worthy of praise was the solo guitar work of Rzeznik, who showed that he has legitimate ability beyond the frantic power-chord rhythm playing required of the grunge formula.
No Doubt opened the concert with a set that was interesting for its spitting - and spat-upon - female lead singer, and for the group's two-man horn section, an unusual addition to what was otherwise a typical ska-punk alternative hybrid band.
No Doubt even showed flashes of melody. No kidding.
Unfortunately, they were only occasional flashes and were drowned out, so to speak, by all the spitting.
``If you spit on me one more time, I'm gonna kick your a--,'' the group's singer threatened at one point, after enduring a couple of direct hits from the audience. (Note that this happened after she had already fired a few of her own onto the first row.)
She then stormed off the stage, only to return with such thought-provoking lyrics as these: ``I'm just a girl. I'm just a girl. I'm just a girl. F--- y--, I'm a girl!''
Nice.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 linesby CNB