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-- Mark Jenkins
The Hooters
A lot of babysitters nabbed overtime pay Saturday night. That's because a swarm of NoVa moms and dads in faded jeans, white Reeboks and casual blazers stayed out late at the Birchmere to relive their concertgoing 1980s with the Hooters.
The band reciprocated the crowd's period sensibilities by busting out double-neck guitars, making jazz faces during solos and playing all the hits that made the Hooters mid-'80s phenoms.
The Philly fivesome also delved into several songs that frontmen Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman penned for others, including a rocked-up "Time After Time" (Cyndi Lauper) and a strait-laced "One of Us" (Joan Osborne). The Hooters also recast Don Henley's boomer anthem "The Boys of Summer" as a lighter ballad for the aging Gen-Xers, who gleefully if awkwardly danced throughout the night.
The Hooters played 20 tunes, including "Time Stand Still," the title track from the group's 2007 CD, as well as "All You Zombies," "Day by Day" and "And We Danced," the last of which featured violinist Ann Marie Calhoun -- a Virginia native and recent Grammy talent-contest winner -- who joined the Hooters for a large chunk of the set.
After nearly two hours, the band closed its concert with a romp through Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding." The Hooters finished the song with a synchronized flourish befitting their former arena-rock status, then took to the front of the stage for a glorious group bow before sending the invigorated parents back to their young.
-- Christopher Porter
Stephen Malkmus
One could argue that the better Stephen Malkmus gets on guitar, the less interesting his music becomes. But as he demonstrated at the sold-out 9:30 club on Friday night, the former Pavement mastermind is no Jimi Hendrix . . . yet.
Malkmus seemed most engaged when his guitar was doing the talking, spraying woozy, distorted runs -- something he did frequently during the occasionally tedious 90-minute-plus show. Backed by the Jicks -- now anchored by indie rock royal Janet Weiss on drums -- Malkmus played the guileful slacker, babbling distractedly between songs about everything from snipers to d.c. space and singing with minimal commitment. For the majority of the night, the crowd reaction was utterly soporific; the liveliest interlude might have been the band intros, on which Malkmus broke a guitar string, which is probably some kind of first.
