For a brief moment during Monday night's Maroon 5 gig at the Xcel Energy Center, the Los Angeles pop band truly cut loose and kicked out an instantly recognizable jam, the sort of riff you can feel in your gut.

 

The problem? It wasn't their jam. It was actually a snippet of the White Stripes' "Icky Thump" welded onto the tail end of "Shiver," a track from Maroon 5's 2002 breakthrough disc "Songs About Jane." Rarely during the 15-song, 85-minute performance did the band ever seem all that excited about playing its own music.

 

That lack of enthusiasm was painfully obvious throughout the show, which wasn't awful by any means, rather just rote, over-rehearsed and a bit bloodless. It felt like the chilly, going-through-the-motions actions of a band a year or two into an endless world tour. But, gulp, this was only the second date of Maroon 5's first proper outing in support of their sophomore disc, "It Won't Be Soon Before Long."

 

Interest has dropped in the guys since we last saw them at the X, in April 2005. Monday night's attendance rang in at about 7,800, a full 5,000 fewer folks than saw them two years ago. And, for the most part, those who stuck with Maroon 5 still haven't warmed up to the new disc, despite its impressive first-week sales of just under a half-million.

 

To wit, the crowd greeted the nine "Songs About Jane"-era numbers like long-lost friends, particularly the late-in-the-set song "Sunday Morning," which wasn't a huge hit the first time around but has struck some sort of chord with listeners. Lead singer Adam Levine picked up some moves from Sting after opening for the reunited Police this summer, most obviously showing them off with three impressive leaps at the end of "The Sun."

Levine also found time to give a shout-out to Prince - he's "slightly jealous of Minnesota" because of the Purple One - and he thanked the audience several times. But he was severely lacking in the charisma needed to project to the cheap seats, let alone to sell the newer, lesser-known songs. His sneering, slow-burn sensuality that makes Maroon 5's videos a campy pleasure looked ridiculous when a sweaty Levine was perched on a catwalk in front of a paying audience.

 

Perhaps Maroon 5's biggest mistake was hiring Swedish garage rockers the Hives as the opening act. Make no mistake, the Hives are all shtick, right down to the matching suits and lead singer Pelle Almqvist's Mick-Jagger-on-speed antics. That shtick hasn't changed one iota since we last saw them, in 2004. But the Hives played like they were actually having a good time, which is far more than one can say about the headliners.

 

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I don't get it. Is it a review of the new tour or the 2003 tour? :unsure:

New tour :(

Another bad review? What in the world..seeing Adam would make it good enough for me. :lol:

I'll say :lol:

Aaah well. It was interesting to read, even if it was negative -_-

Tbh, every performance I've seen of the new album is DULL. It sounds so good (imho) recorded but the whole thing just becomes so awful when it's performed... maybe it's because it's more electro than their first album? 'Makes Me Wonder' seems a particularly difficult song to perform with gusto.