Weezer Brings ‘Blue Album,’ Aliens and Alt-Rock Bliss to Madison Square Garden
variety.comEthan Shanfeld Midway through Weezer’s space-themed Madison Square Garden concert on Wednesday, the band stepped into a new stage design: a decaying and ugly gray planet. “It’s dying,” said Rivers Cuomo, not totally selling the line, as a Weezer flag was planted in the proverbial soil. “We need the ‘Blue Album’ to bring it back to life.” The crowd roared as an alien handed the bespectacled frontman a guitar.
Cuomo triumphantly threw up the band’s flying “=W=” logo with his hands. Thousands of New York fans mirrored him. “That’s one small step for Weezer.
One giant leap for Weezerkind,” Cuomo said, as elder millennials down in the pit were taking selfies with the flash on. By this point, the show, filled with galactic set pieces and astronaut costumes, had started to feel a bit like watching the Wiggles. (Only, if the Wiggles were responsible for some of alternative rock’s greatest nerd-anthems and emo bangers.) But then the band launched into the opening guitar riff of “My Name Is Jonas” — followed by the entirety of the “Blue Album,” which this year turned 30 — and my misgivings faded into the cosmos.
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