Monday, December 26, 2011

The Verve Pipe in Concert: My Experience

This blog post is a little different, as I recently had the opportunity to see The Verve Pipe in Grand Rapids with a good friend from high school and one of his college friends.  The band played at a club downtown called The Intersection, and several hundred people showed up.  I've been listening to The Verve Pipe for about 15 years; like so many others, my first memories of them are of hearing their big hit "The Freshman" on the radio over and over again back in 1997 (when I was 12).  That song is part of their Villains album, which was their big commercial breakthrough; however, they had released two non-major label albums previously.  They then released two more albums, The Verve Pipe (which the band refers to as the "frog" album) in 1999 and Underneath in 2001, before fading into history as another 1990s rock bad who briefly achieved relatively mild success.

Despite not doing too much brand new of note over the past ten or so years, The Verve Pipe has maintained a steady following, as evidenced in part by the turnout from their concert the other night.  The band started to build their following from the ground up back in the early 1990s, when they traveled around to college campuses throughout the state of Michigan.  They are from East Lansing, and unlike many other bands who achieve national and international success, they have stayed true to their roots and continue to have their strongest following in Michigan.  Brian Vander Ark, the lead singer, told stories from the band's early days at the concert, including their experiences playing at colleges throughout the state and how he wrote their song "Victoria" while working at MC Sports.  In an era where commercial success gets to people's heads, to see this loyalty and perspective years after the fact is very refreshing.

The concert started at 8:00 PM and ended around midnight; two different opening acts, both out of Grand Rapids, spent close to an hour each warming up the crowd before the main act spent close to two hours on stage.  Bitter Apples was the first band, a three-man act that played what I would call some intense punk/alternative type rock.  Brena was the second band; they were a five-man act that played more upbeat pop-rock.  Both did a great job; however I would say that Brena was much more crowd friendly.  They were dressed in Christmas-themed clothing and did a better job of pumping up the audience.  If you're a fan of their respective types of music, I would recommend trying out these two bands.

I was pretty surprised that it was about two hours before The Verve Pipe actually got on stage.  They played for around 1.5 hours before going off stage then coming back for a three-song encore.  Although the whole show was great, for me possibly the main highlight was at the beginning.  They started off with one of my favorites, "Drive You Mild", followed by my very favorite, "Hero".  Indeed, seeing them play "Hero" in person alone made the trip worth it!  The song selection was solid, though it leaned very heavily towards the Villains and Underneath albums.  By my count, they played seven songs from Underneath and six from Villains, while playing only two from the "frog" album ("Hero" and "In Between", the latter immediately following the former) and two from the pre-Villains era ("Victoria" being one of them, with "Spoonful of Sugar" being the other).  My other favorite performances of the night were "Villains", "Cup of Tea", "I Want All of You", and "Local Boys", the latter being their closer.  Many of the songs were a little different from the studio tracks; I especially liked how they incorporated the harmonica into an extended version of "I Want All of You".  Two songs they didn't play that I was hoping to hear were "Reverend Girl" and "She Loves Everybody", but I understand that they couldn't play everything!

Overall, this was a very fun evening, and considering everything I have had to deal with this past year, it was something I badly needed.  I got to see a band that I have been following since I was about 12 years old in concert and learned about a couple of other local bands as a bonus.  Not to mention, I got to spend some time with one of my best friends for the first time in quite a while.  I am certainly going to cherish the memories from that night for a long time.

Here are some links on YouTube to video clips from the show (not taken by me):
Drive You Mild & Hero: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pENnORpLb7Y&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
Victoria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ii34BLSN8A&feature=BFa&list=ULzPsk_Zws2qw&lf=mfu_in_order
Local Boys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPsk_Zws2qw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL