Roadtripping with Weezer

Weezer is on a 30-city run of shows—Weezer’s Indie Rock Road Trip—and one of the stops was in Columbia, Maryland, at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Joined by Joyce Manor and Future Islands, they arranged an awesome playlist—all while snapping selfies and enjoying life on the road.

There was a little mix-up at the box office for me, so I missed out on capturing Joyce Manor; they sounded fantastic, though, so I hope to catch them sometime in the future. Since I’d missed my pit opportunity for the first band, I decided to browse the merch. Weezer has so much to offer, multiple shirt designs, snapback trucker hats, location-specific posters, and an awesome tote bag. I might’ve let myself get carried away, walking away with two shirts and a tote (It has a zipper!).

When it came time for the second opener to take the stage, I was ready. I’d heard the name Future Islands before, but I’d never caught a show. The band hails from Baltimore and is made up of Samuel T. Herring (vocals), Gerrit Welmers (keyboard), Michael Lowry (drums), and William Cashion (bass, acoustic and electric guitars). The singer has such a unique voice and vocal style. I’d never heard anything like it, really. A bundle of energy, Samuel dances and gyrates, leaving no corner of the stage untouched. I’ve never seen so many high-kicks in my life, much less in black skinny jeans. The singer admitted to wearing all black as to fake a thinner body type. (I feel that, for sure!)

Weezer’s stage was hidden behind black curtains, but were removed to reveal a gigantic dashboard with steering wheel and radio dials; you could hear snippets of popular tunes (one of them being Weezer’s cover of “Africa”), radio static, and station call signs being dialed in. The road trip started out with “My Name is Jonas,” “Beverly Hills,” and “Return to Ithaka.”

I think they really pulled out all the stops on the tour theme. It was such a fun visual spectacle, and the guys were great entertainers throughout their part of the show. (And none of this comes from the bias of being a Weezer fan!)

The giant screen behind the dashboard accompanied all the songs, showing cartoonish visuals that matched up to the songs being played. It was so clever and really enjoyable to watch. One visual I remember seeing was animated roadkill…one thing you can never avoid on a long roadtrip.

Much to my excitement, a majority of the setlist came from 1994’s “blue album.” Heavy hitters such as “Hash Pipe,” “Pork and Beans,” and “Island in the Sun” also made the cut.

At one point in the show, Rivers explained that they have so many songs, they could play a different song at each tour date and not repeat any of them. They wanted to play a different “feature song” at each tour date, so ours was “Getchoo”; Rivers played it solo acoustic. That was followed up by Scott and Brian joining Rivers on an “ancient” microphone (I believe he said from the 40s?) to sing “Susanne.”

The show was peppered with fun moments, like Rivers in a cowboy hat, Rivers at a little piano, and a crowd selfie moment with a Polaroid camera. (Apparently, they’d been taking selfies throughout the tour.)

During the encore, the guys came back out in some of their trucker hats, which they threw into the crowd. At the end, they took a selfie via the big screen which was then transposed onto a postcard layout with “Greetings from Maryland” as the front, a “from” address posted in the top left corner from the “fifth member” on the group photo side. At the top of the big screen, a license plate with WEEZER as the lettering on a Maryland state license plate could be seen. I found it so clever. I kind of hope that they put together a road trip photo album that documents their tour.

Go out and thumb a ride at the nearest venue pit stop! You won’t regret it!

Weezer’s full set list for Merriweather Post Pavilion can be found here.

All photos courtesy of Deanna Escobar.