Jason Mraz @ House of Blues Cleveland

by Sergio
October 19, 2005
Cleveland, OH



When the show listing came through, I gave it a quick once over to see if there was anything interesting. Jason Mraz. He had a hit song that I really liked ("You and I" – a song about timing, a recurring theme in my life), but as far as I knew, his target demographic had just finished their time with the My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake crew. In fact, Jason has done a lot of time as a part of our inside jokes. I have often adopted the moniker "I heart Mraz" during games of Unreal Tournament. That was the extent of my knowledge. The show was in the big room at the House of Blues, the room I had not seen a concert in yet. It's a nice room with two levels, and a bunker of higher-rent seats that I need to try out soon. The place is decked out in a sort of Minnie Pearl-goes-to-New Orleans vibe, and the dark (even in full light) décor is fun enough. Yeah, it is one of the better rock clubs around, but paying six bucks to drink a Bass out of a plastic cup seems a little excessive.

I would imagine that the beer prices were high to make up for the fact that 99 percent of those in attendance weren't old enough to partake - which reminds me, I had two tickets. I always get two tickets to review a show. Most of the time, the second seat is easy to fill. This time, I had to come up with someone open-minded enough to ride shotgun. I took Doug Cooper, my partner on the Fishbones podcast. He was open-minded enough to dig the show, and my ace in the hole to make sure I was not the oldest one there.

Yes, we were the oldest ones there. Looking around and doing some simple arithmetic, I realized that most of these girls could very well be my kids, were I to have sewn wild oats in Ohio in my late teens. The shown had two openers, Bushwalla (www.bushwalla.net ) and Dropping Daylight (www.droppingdaylight.com ). Both bands were good, and showed some promise, but two full openers seemed a little excessive. Check out their sites for more details, but in a nutshell, Bushwalla struck me as an Adam Sandler for the jam band set, and Dropping Daylight as pop-emo-meets-Ben Folds. Before you press that hatemail button, I am not talking trash, just giving a quick and accurate call.

Our first peek at Mraz (www.jasonmraz.com) was during the Bushwalla set, when he sat in for a quickie. Bushwalla would later return the favor.

Mraz's set caught me completely off guard. Naturally, I would expect to hear the singles from the radio, along with heavy push on the new album (Mr. A-Z). What I got was completely different.

Mraz is, above all, a wit. During the show, Douggie (my man date) and I conspired that he was most likely a drama kid who one day, slayed them on talent show night. He was a wordsmith, a poet (but not the lame sort that annoys all with grandiose tales, the upshot of which is how much of a genius he actually is), a showman, but above all, a music lover.

Interspersed with an impressive amount of hits, he jammed out with his band through a wide variety of musical styles. I was impressed by the band's musical vocabulary at first. Then, I noticed that the kids were digging musical styles they might not otherwise ever be exposed to. This is when I realized that Mraz is not only a great entertainer, but a music teacher. I just hope that these kids will recognize some of these styles in their parents' record collections and continue their education.

In short. I heart Mraz.

www.jasonmraz.com

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