Midway through Weezer’s space-themed Madison Square Garden concert on Wednesday, the band stepped into a new stage design: a decaying and ugly gray planet.
“It’s dying,” said Rivers Cuomo, not totally selling the line, as a Weezer flag was planted in the proverbial soil. “We need the ‘Blue Album’ to bring it back to life.”
The crowd roared as an alien handed the bespectacled frontman a guitar. Cuomo triumphantly threw up the band’s flying “=W=” logo with his hands. Thousands of New York fans mirrored him.
“That’s one small step for Weezer. One giant leap for Weezerkind,” Cuomo said, as elder millennials down in the pit were taking selfies with the flash on.
By this point, the show, filled with galactic set pieces and astronaut costumes, had started to feel a bit like watching the Wiggles. (Only, if the Wiggles were responsible for some of alternative rock’s greatest nerd-anthems and emo bangers.) But then the band launched into the opening guitar riff of “My Name Is Jonas” — followed by the entirety of the “Blue Album,” which this year turned 30 — and my misgivings faded into the cosmos.
After Weezer first arrived on stage, via an elaborate rocket ship to an unspecified location “30 light-years from the Blue Planet,” they opened with two random songs from “Everything Will Be Alright in the End,” an album that many consider their best since “Pinkerton.” (It’s actually the phenomenal “White Album,” which, regrettably, was not represented at all on this setlist.)
Then there was “Hash Pipe,” which got people singing; “Pork and Beans,” in all its angsty glory; and a nerfed version of “Burndt Jamb,” whose distorted-guitar explosions didn’t translate. Then there was a song from “Pacific Daydream” (God, why?), “Perfect Situation” and a track from the recent “SZNS” project, before the band crash-landed on the “Pinkerton Asteroid Belt” and delivered excellent renditions of “Pink Triangle” and “Across the Sea,” which drew rapturous applause.
Much has been said about some of Weezer’s early lyrics, which haven’t always aged well. But speaking for myself, I’ve always admired Cuomo’s resistance to disavow his own work, instead embracing the ugly edges of adolescence. He was never the hero in songs like “No One Else” and “Across the Sea,” and that’s OK. Watching him, at 54, sing about being a jealous, pathetic and horny young loser is actually quite charming.
The band’s “Blue Album” set was by far the strongest section of the night. The skate-rock solipsism of “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” showcased Weezer at its tightest, and the band amusingly inserted the Manhattan watering hole McSorley’s into the spoken word portion of “Undone.” A mosh pit broke out during “Surf Wax America,” and Cuomo got sappy during the show’s final stretch.
“Thirty light-years. Thanks for sticking with us all the way,” he said, sticking to the theme while marveling at how long it’s been since the “Blue Album,” which changed his life and turned Weezer into one of the biggest alt-rock bands of the last few decades.
Then, Cuomo and co. closed on what is largely considered their best work, voyaging into the sparkling bass-and-guitar bliss of “Only in Dreams.” As the band locked in for the song’s joyous, garage-rock climax, I reflected on my favorite memories listening to Weezer. The unashamedly dorky masterpieces, the schlocky radio hits, the hidden gems and the screaming matches about what their third-best album is. May they never fall out of orbit.