Smash Mouth & Spin Doctors – October 25, 2024

Event Details

Reserved Seating – All Ages

Date: Friday, October 25, 2024

Doors Open: 6:30 PM

Show Time: 8:00 PM

Event Cost: $69.99 – $89.99 (Plus applicable fees)

About This Performance

Smash Mouth

Smash Mouth stands tall as a global phenomenon, a force to be reckoned with over its illustrious three-decade journey. From humble origins in San Jose, CA, they’ve transcended local curiosity, invaded national playlists, and evolved into international live phenoms. Smash Mouth, a name etched in gold as multi-platinum and Grammy-nominated pop-rock icons, has navigated the realms of legendary status with unparalleled finesse.

In the late ’90s, Smash Mouth embarked on a relentless touring spree, solidifying their legendary live performer status with a timeless and universal appeal. As the 21st century dawned, they seamlessly transitioned into an international household name, forever woven into the fabric of popular culture. Their live shows are nothing short of spectacular—exciting, entertaining, and overflowing with hit-laden extravagance. Smash Mouth’s electrifying stage presence springs from their natural all-inclusiveness. With music universally adored and an allure spanning wide, they can command any audience, anywhere in the world, leaving them clamoring for more every single time. Simply put, EVERYONE loves Smash Mouth.

A trove of international awards, accolades, and achievements over three decades cements Smash Mouth’s legacy. Their TV and film appearances are too numerous to count, including a record-breaking stint on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and pivotal roles in classics like “Rat Race” and the monumental “Shrek.” Smash Mouth is the unmistakable soundtrack to the most-watched movie in the history of the universe, forever embracing the title of “The Shrek Band.” Beyond massive international tours with icons like U2, Lenny Kravitz, *NSync, and KISS, Smash Mouth’s versatility shines through collaborations with showbiz legends ranging from Engelbert Humperdinck to George Clinton to Neil Diamond.

Yet, Smash Mouth’s true prowess lies in their music. Between 1997 and 2002, they notched up an extraordinary six top 20 hits, dominating the airwaves at the turn of the century. Two of these hits, “Walkin’ On The Sun” and “All-Star,” soared to #1 and lingered there, with the latter recently surpassing a mind-boggling ONE BILLION streams on Spotify. Their social media acclaim, recognized by Billboard, Rolling Stone, Newsweek and many other prominent outlets is a testament to their enduring influence, with a YouTube channel boasting over 1 million subscribers.

The five maestros of Smash Mouth (Paul DeLisle, Zach Goode, Michael Klooster, Randy Cooke and Sean Hurwitz) have solidified their international reputation as world-class musicians and performers. Committed to giving 100% effort in every show, their inherent and determined ability to connect with any audience worldwide is nothing short of astounding. Smash Mouth’s electrifying live shows make their legions of fans winners every time, a testament to their indomitable spirit and unwavering purpose.

Spin Doctors

Thirty years. It’s an eternity in rock ‘n’ roll, and a marathon for the bands who fly its tattered flag. Revisit the class of 1988, and the casualties are piled high: a thousand bands that blew up and burnt out. In this chew-and-spit industry, the Spin Doctors are the last men standing, still making music like their lives depend on it, still riding the bus, still shaking the room. They’ve never been a band for backslaps and self-congratulation. Even now, plans are afoot for a seventh studio album and another swashbuckling world tour, adding to their tally of almost two thousand shows.

Like all the best rock ‘n’ roll mythology, the final page of the Spin Doctors’ biography remains forever unwritten. But if the band’s story is to begin anywhere, it should be at New York’s New School university in the fall of ’88, when a fateful door-knock sparked the first meeting of Aaron Comess and guitarist Eric Schenkman. Trading as the Trucking Company, Schenkman, local legend John Popper and a charisma-bomb vocalist named Chris Barron had been making a glorious noise in the clubs downtown. But when Popper committed himself to Blues Traveler, the remnants sought new blood. Having assured Schenkman that he’d “check them out,” Comess formed a ferocious rhythm section with Bronx-raised bassist Mark White. “When I first met them,” recalls White, “I thought, ‘These are some funky-assed white boys.’ I’m the black guy in the band, and they had to teach me to play the blues.”

The nascent Spin Doctors lineup hit the Lower Manhattan blues circuit like a wrecking ball. Flexing their musicianship and announcing their elastic approach to live performance with jams that stretched to the outer reaches, the lineup’s glorious ability to supercharge a tune was in evidence on 1991’s debut live release, Up For Grabs, where some tracks stormed beyond ten minutes. They didn’t know it yet, but the Spin Doctors – alongside peers like Blues Traveler, Phish and Widespread Panic – would drag the jam-band ethos into the ’90s era, their DNA later dripping into the scene’s post-millennial resurgence. Just as important was the band’s habit of bending the house rules at the downtown blues clubs by slipping in their own songs alongside the rocket-fueled standards. And it was that same flair for original songcraft that carried them into a deal with Epic Records, setting up the Pocket Full Of Kryptonite album that defined the early-’90s rock scene.  Led by relentless touring, the album sold steadily – but within a year, Epic had declared it “dead” and pushed the band to return to the studio. “But we decided to go back on the road,” says Comess, “as we felt the buzz building and believed in the record. Sure enough, within a few months, Jim McGuinn up in Vermont started playing “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” and it went to #1. He wrote to the head of Epic, telling him they’d be crazy not to push this band. That was the fuel that lit the fire.”

The numbers were staggering. But it was the Spin Doctors’ capacity to reinvent themselves throughout the unfolding decade that confirmed their status as a great American band. In 1994, they struck back with Turn It Upside Down: a bitter-sweet album that has some superb songs, from “Cleopatra’s Cat” to “You Let Your Heart Go Too Fast.” Every long-serving rock band must endure a period of stormy weather, and the Spin Doctors have scars to go along with the award statuettes. Schenkman left before 1996’s You’ve Got To Believe In Something, while the departure of White during 1999’s Here Comes The Bride was a hammer-blow to a band that ran on chemistry. For a heartbeat in the post-millennium, this most bulletproof of bands appeared to be on the ropes, as morose nu-metal gripped the rock mainstream, and Barron was laid low by vocal cord paralysis. If the singer’s fight back to vocal fitness was miraculous, then fewer still would have foretold the spectacle – in September 2001 – of the classic Spin Doctors lineup reuniting at the Wetlands club in Manhattan where they had cut their teeth. The chemistry proved too strong to put back in the box, and scattershot live shows ultimately spilled into 2005’s Nice Talking To Me. The band’s next move was as real as it gets. Faced with 2013’s acclaimed sixth studio, If The River Was Whiskey, some rock journalists spoke of a change of direction. Long-term fans knew better: these gritty blues originals tipped a hat to the band’s first steps on the New York circuit, managing to revisit their roots while reinvigorating their sound. “We cut that record in two days,” recalls Schenkman. “It was very similar to how we initially made records, when we’d go out and play in the bars of New York, then we’d record music because we were playing so good.”

Long-term strategy has never been the Spin Doctors’ style. While cultural commentators have long since given up plotting the trajectory of this most unpredictable band, it’s a revelation to learn that the lineup themselves have no road map. Thirty years. A thousand twists. But whatever happens down the road, rest assured that the Spin Doctors will always be the last men standing, still making music like their lives depend on it, still riding the bus, still shaking the room. “It’s been a great ride,” considers Comess. Then he adds: “So far…”