Chris Collingwood is a pop music prizefighter with no shortage of winning hooks. It’s a skill that got spotlighted in his band Fountains of Wayne and it shines equally strong in his brand-new project, Look Park.
This past Tuesday night the five-piece band played its first-ever gig at a sold-out Parlor Room in Northampton (it was also the venue’s first-ever summer show; usually the Signature Sounds concert space takes the season off).
Before the end of Look Park’s 14-song set (with one more for an encore), the rhythm section’s shirts had soaked through and turned darker colors, thanks to the hot stage lights and full house.
The band’s appearance at the cozy local venue was doubling as a rehearsal for its second-ever show, taking place Saturday — in front of 100,000 people, at the Fuji Rock Festival in Niigata, Japan.
The Look Park debut album (which hits stores Friday) was recorded in collaboration with acclaimed producer Mitchell Froom in Santa Monica, California, and sparkles with his love of lush textures; it’s fantastic and highly recommended.
Meanwhile, the impressive live concert gave the songs a more immediate jolt of energy. Collingwood’s steady strum on his acoustic guitar acted as the music’s pulse, and he was backed by an all-star local lineup (guitarist/vocalist Philip Price and drummer Dave Hower from Winterpills and Fancy Trash bassist Paul Kochanski) and an old bandmate (Brooklyn multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Scott Klass).
Hower said hello to the audience with a pounding rhythm on the toms as the other musicians got themselves situated and kicked into the night’s opening number, “Save Yourself.” Klass filled the song with Mellotron flutes and strings, orchestral swells that added a melancholy undertow to the crisp major-key atmosphere.
Collingwood’s new songs were immediate and inviting. The groovy “Breezy” had the snap of ’60s soul; Price and Klass contributed timeless backing vocal interjections, “ooo-ooo” and “dit-dit, dit.”
“Minor Is the Lonely Key” had the musical shape of something from an early Beatles album, though the lyrics were more 21st century (“They dance with their tube tops on / set fire in the open air / life is a dream of stems and seeds”).
The airy and swirling “Stars of New York” shared a vibe with the best ’70s pop (and also some of the work of the band Ivy, whose lineup includes Collingwood’s Fountains of Wayne bandmate Adam Schlesinger). Every instrument was at maximum hookiness, from a catchy bass line to a twinkling piano melody played high in octaves.
Another of the night’s bright spots was the FOW song “A Dip In the Ocean,” which had soaring three-part harmonies and Collingwood rocking out, with the band at full strength. It was a pure pop blast of fresh air, like driving down the highway with the windows down.
After the song Collingwood briefly addressed the crowd, getting into practice for Saturday’s huge show.
“Arigato,” he said, using the Japanese word for “thank you.”
Collingwood and friends played much of the Look Park album, but also a spirited version of World Party’s “Put the Message In the Box” (“We’re hoping thousands and thousands of people don’t know that’s a cover,” he quipped) and some of FOW’s catchiest songs, including “Red Dragon Tattoo,” “Barbara H.” and “Radiation Vibe” (which snuck in a clever snippet of a hit by Yokohama-based band Asian Kung-Fu Generation; “That’ll go over really big in Japan,” he said, sounding kind of excited).
The days-away trip to Japan was a running theme of the night, with Collingwood saying he basically only knew how to say three words in Japanese (“thank you, please, excuse me”), and also how the band was expressly told that their set at the Fuji Rock Festival had to be at least 50 minutes long but no more than 60 minutes.
Collingwood shared that info to explain their somewhat limited repertoire when it was encore time. “We actually only know one more song, and I’m not even kidding,” he said, ending the night with a minor-key waltz, “I’m Gonna Haunt This Place.”
“Hate to leave you on a grim one,” he said before they played it, but it was beautiful (and haunting), with Klass playing otherworldly mallet percussion sounds and joining Price for backing vocals that rang out like an apocalyptic sea shanty.
Collingwood and Look Park will next appear locally at its namesake venue, playing this year’s “Amourasaurus II” festival (put on by Signature Sounds and Lake Street Dive) at Look Memorial Park in Florence Aug. 27 at 4 p.m., sharing a bill with Lake Street Dive, Mavis Staples, Son Little and Christina Courtin.
For more details visit amourasaurus.com.
Ken Maiuri can be reached at clublandcolumn@gmail.com.