The Kern County Fair on Monday hosted a band that had all the right moves, but just couldn’t put them together.
The San Francisco-based Train is not a wreck – they are a solid enough modern rock group, with more musical sensibility then most – and they could possibly match the success of the more well established matchbox twenty, whom they have been touring with recently.
I was only able to see a short bit of the concert, due to a security misunderstanding. I was asked to leave after seven songs by four fair security guards and two actual guards. Apparently, all six of them were needed since my dangerous weapon in hand was my pen. But that incident notwithstanding, I was able to get a fairly good grasp of what Columbia Record’s Train is all about.
After opening with a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by a local man and some emotional words from a KLLY-FM disc jockey, the band came out, and with no preamble, went into their first song, “She’s on Fire.” This one is from their most recent album, “Drops of Jupiter,” but has not been released as a single yet. Lead singer Pat Monahan sang enthusiastically enough, even pulling out a trombone at one point to jam, and the rest of the band went through the motions, but I had somewhat higher expectations of Train, hearing from many sources that they were a great group to see live.
All the band members were wearing jeans and button-front collared shirts, and they all looked like Gap was their sponsor, but they never thanked the clothing company publicly. Train is more preppy than rock, it seems.
This gave guitarist Rob Hotchkiss, who also plays the harmonica, a chance to rock out on the guitar, doing a faster, tighter variation on the main hook, which got the crowd pumped. Monahan even tried to dance along a bit, but he seemed to realize he really didn’t have any rhythm, so he played along with the joke and did exaggerated moves across the stage, proving that if nothing else, he was a good sport.
However, the highlight of the concert, or the seven songs I saw, was when the band did a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On,” from their “Led Zeppelin II” album. The well-known song grudgingly made my respect for Train rise ever so slightly, since I’m a biased Zeppelin fan. Train’s energy on this song was the highest of the abbreviated evening. Monahan pumped his fist in the air, the audience sang along, and drummer Scott Underwood kept the beat going nicely, while the opening guitar hooks echoed throughout the sultry evening. Bass player Charlie Colin and lead guitarist and mandolin player Jimmy Stafford also seemed to have fun with it. Why they chose this song to cover, I don’t know, but it was a wise decision.
Train’s problem, besides needing to be more energetic onstage with their own songs, and not just the covers, is that a lot of their slower, whinier songs sound very similar. They pull out a muted trumpet, the harmonica and bongos, but it still isn’t enough to distinguish them from the crowded landscape of matchbox twenty, Third Eye Blind and Lighthouse. Their new single, which they did play, was the ballad “Something More,” but it was bland and whiny, and the lyrics had nothing special to say.
As I was leaving, the refrain from “Drops of Jupiter” followed me, the biggest hit from their same-titled album. While catchy enough, the sound just didn’t establish itself as unique.
Train certainly has the musical chops to succeed, but to truly stand out they need to pump themselves up and get a creative burst.