Author: Alana Saltz
As far as indie rock goes, Nada Surf is not one of the better-known bands out there. Some people may be familiar with their one fleeting hit from the ’90s, “Popular.” However, they’ve been around for over a decade, and last month they released their newest album, Lucky.
Nada Surf played to a nearly sold-out audience at The Glass House in what is generously referred to as downtown Pomona. After a long wait with a restless crowd, the three members of the band walked onto the stage along with their keyboardist. They immediately launched into “Hi-Speed Soul,” a song from their 2003 album Let Go.
It’s never clear what one should expect from bands at their shows. Some come onstage, mumble a few obligatory words between songs and lumber off. Nada Surf is not one of those bands. It took them a few songs to get their energy up, but they quickly warmed to the audience. Throughout the concert, they instructed everyone how to sing and dance along to several of their songs. For “Inside of Love,” lead singer Matthew Caws prefaced the song by teaching the audience a simple dance.
“This is a dance for a soul song and I’m going to teach you the Soul Step,” he said. He demonstrated the simple side-to-side stepping dance, and almost everyone in the audience moved in harmony for the entire song.
“Fruit Fly” was “about small insects in my kitchen,” Caws said. Bassist Daniel Lorca decided it would be fun if the song got translated into Spanish. They asked the crowd for a Spanish-speaking volunteer to take the stage, but no one came forward.
“I’m asking for a lot of participation tonight,” Caws said to the audience. “I must be really needy.” Lorca translated the song himself, crooning the lyrics in Spanish after Caws sang them in English.
During the show, audience members constantly shouted out requests, and the band always took care to respond to them. They would announce each upcoming song or apologize if they didn’t have enough time to play a request. The band even decided to have the audience take a vote between three songs that weren’t on the set list for them to play later.
“Suddenly this is like a game show,” Caws said. Nada Surf did play “Popular,” but it didn’t sound much like any of their recent music. They performed several more songs pulled from different albums before leaving the stage. The band returned for an encore and played the audience-requested “Blonde on Blonde.” A member of Sea Wolf-who opened the night-accompanied them by playing impromptu accordion during the chorus.
Before performing “The Fox” off Lucky, Caws issued a warning: “We’ve never played this song in the States before, and we’ve only done it once live,” he said. “I was going to say wish us luck, but no. We will play it accurately and correctly for you guys!” Caws was true to his word and it sounded amazing. The set concluded with “The Blankest Year.”
Audience participation was solicited once more as Caws requested they shout “F-k it!” in response to that lyric in the song. Many times, the band would start winding down the song just to start it back up again. It was clear that they didn’t want to stop playing.
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