Post by MileySmiley08 on Mar 4, 2008 17:27:54 GMT -5
Following their graduation from Hannah Montana Middle School, kids might enroll at Jonas Brothers High School. Those aren't actual educational institutions, of course, but as kids age, they often tire of one musical act and "graduate" to another.
The Jonas Brothers also have graduated, in a sense. They were the opening act for the Hannah Montana concert at the Allstate Arena in December. Friday night, the New Jersey siblings returned to the venue in Rosemont, but this time it was a stop on their first tour as a headlining act.
The Jonas Brothers are guitar-wielding Kevin, 20; acrobatic vocalist Joe, 18, and plucky multi-instrumentalist Nick, 15, who can play guitar, drums and piano. The band's concerts attract exactly the same demographic as a Hannah Montana show -- girls in their early teens accompanied by their patient, compliant mothers.
The concert was musically generic, lyrically clean and generally innocuous, making it a fine outing for the typical overstressed mom who needs a break after putting in a 50-hour week and then chaperoning her two tweens and their cousin to a concert in 26-degree weather.
Songs from the Jonas Brothers' 2006 debut, "It's About Time," and this year's self-titled disc tended to blend together in concert. The tunes were a barrage of the type of bland pop-rock that Madison Avenue has long used to sell kids things they don't need.
Shrieks of approval
The band previewed material from their forthcoming album, but new songs like "Burning Up" and "Pushing Me Away" were more of the same.
Both Joe and Nick entreated the parents in the crowd to dance on separate occasions. (The kids mainly showed their appreciation by screaming, not dancing.) The band's lukewarm cover of Norwegian pop band A-Ha's 1985 chart-topping hit "Take on Me" also seemed to be an acknowledgment of the parental units in the arena. This tune featured nice keyboard work by Ryan Liestman, one of four supporting musicians who backed the trio.
Throughout the show, Joe demonstrated his athletic skills with a series of jumps, dance steps and agile microphone-stand maneuvers. The concert's best razzle-dazzle moment came at the end of the power ballad "When You Look Me in the Eyes," when Joe hopped atop the white piano that Nick had been playing. Then Nick stood up on his piano bench -- a move that generated shrieks of approval.
If the kids at Friday's concert continue studying poppy, guitar-based rock, perhaps one day they'll enroll at the alma mater of one of their parents. After all, classes are always in session at Tom Petty University and the Cheap Trick Graduate School of Musical Education.
www.suntimes.com/entertainment/music/poprock/809859,CST-NWS-jonas24.article
The Jonas Brothers also have graduated, in a sense. They were the opening act for the Hannah Montana concert at the Allstate Arena in December. Friday night, the New Jersey siblings returned to the venue in Rosemont, but this time it was a stop on their first tour as a headlining act.
The Jonas Brothers are guitar-wielding Kevin, 20; acrobatic vocalist Joe, 18, and plucky multi-instrumentalist Nick, 15, who can play guitar, drums and piano. The band's concerts attract exactly the same demographic as a Hannah Montana show -- girls in their early teens accompanied by their patient, compliant mothers.
The concert was musically generic, lyrically clean and generally innocuous, making it a fine outing for the typical overstressed mom who needs a break after putting in a 50-hour week and then chaperoning her two tweens and their cousin to a concert in 26-degree weather.
Songs from the Jonas Brothers' 2006 debut, "It's About Time," and this year's self-titled disc tended to blend together in concert. The tunes were a barrage of the type of bland pop-rock that Madison Avenue has long used to sell kids things they don't need.
Shrieks of approval
The band previewed material from their forthcoming album, but new songs like "Burning Up" and "Pushing Me Away" were more of the same.
Both Joe and Nick entreated the parents in the crowd to dance on separate occasions. (The kids mainly showed their appreciation by screaming, not dancing.) The band's lukewarm cover of Norwegian pop band A-Ha's 1985 chart-topping hit "Take on Me" also seemed to be an acknowledgment of the parental units in the arena. This tune featured nice keyboard work by Ryan Liestman, one of four supporting musicians who backed the trio.
Throughout the show, Joe demonstrated his athletic skills with a series of jumps, dance steps and agile microphone-stand maneuvers. The concert's best razzle-dazzle moment came at the end of the power ballad "When You Look Me in the Eyes," when Joe hopped atop the white piano that Nick had been playing. Then Nick stood up on his piano bench -- a move that generated shrieks of approval.
If the kids at Friday's concert continue studying poppy, guitar-based rock, perhaps one day they'll enroll at the alma mater of one of their parents. After all, classes are always in session at Tom Petty University and the Cheap Trick Graduate School of Musical Education.
www.suntimes.com/entertainment/music/poprock/809859,CST-NWS-jonas24.article
