It was a moment worthy of Austin Powers, as Steve Harwell, lead singer of the San Jose, Calif., band Smash Mouth, perched on a drum platform and belted out “Walkin’ on the Sun” while more than a dozen women pulled from the audience shimmed on the stage of House of Blues Sunday night to the song’s chintzy keyboards and swinging groove.
Give the man credit for his choices of role models. Earlier, as Smash Mouth performed not one but two note-perfect Van Halen covers, Harwell made like David Lee Roth, leading the crowd in shouting along to the chorus of “Runnin’ With the Devil” and growling the yeah-yeah-yeah-yeahs of “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” like an amorous grizzly bear.
The kitsch of the ’60s and hard rock of the ’70s may seem strange bedfellows, but both play a role in the soundtrack of California’s beer-bikinis-and-bongs beach culture, along with garage rock and punk, reggae and ska, hip-hop and pop. Smash Mouth guitarist and songwriter Greg Camp incorporates this entire stew into the band’s songs, his nakedly commercial aspirations going hand-in-hand with the knack for good-time music displayed on the band’s two hit CDs.
Thus, “Stoned” shifted back and forth between Camp’s reggae groove and hard rock power chords, and percussionist Marc Cervantes helped navigate the middle ground between ska and Latin music on the slinky “Satellite.” Michael Klooster guided the band across the admittedly narrow spectrum of keyboard-driven rock between Question Mark and the Mysterians’ “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby” — which he drove with staccato organ trills — and Elvis Costello-styled new wave, as his fizzy synthesizer line set “Radio” flying.
Short-sleeved bowling shirt baring his tattooed forearms, cradling a microphone in one hand and beer bottle in the other, Harwell was the rock star as everyman, his Teamster’s rasp adding the necessary edge to the pop melodies that are the band’s secret weapon.
If Smash Mouth never aimed higher than fun, radio-friendly music, at least they put in the rehearsal time to hit their mark dead-on and full-force.
Paul DeLisle’s fat bass lines and the tumbling backbeat of new drummer Michael Urbano (a veteran of Cracker and John Hiatt’s band) kept hips swiveling all night, and the songs’ crisp arrangements maximized the band’s frisky energy.
Much of rock music has become too complicated, too serious, too self-important and too often No Fun, but while Smash Mouth was on stage, there was no chance of any of those things happening.
The Dandy Warhols also evoked Austin Powers in an opening set filled with psychedelic drones. On such songs as “Be-In” and “I Love You,” band leader Courtney Taylor-Taylor’s voice rose like a mist out of the depths of grinding guitars, woozy synthesizer, throbbing keyboard bass grooves and splashing cymbals.
The band touched on a few of the glam rock-influenced songs from its most recent CD, but otherwise contented itself with one tripped-out excursion after another, and the hallucinogenically colored video images the Dandy Warhols displayed on a screen behind them didn’t make up for their music’s monochromatic nature.
