Nada Surf kicks off tour at Shelter

By Luke Smith

For the Daily

Doors were at 5, and I arrived promptly at 5:30, only to find that there was a line of about seven people who hadn't been let in to the basement of Saint Andrews yet. Surely more people were going to come to see Nada Surf than this. I mean c'mon, these guys blew up on MTV back in the '90. You remember the video, with that cute cheerleader dancing around and the exceedingly dorky Matthew Caws talking in a classroom about the necessity of washing one's hair, "once every two weeks, at least once every two weeks."

These guys were Gods.

And now there were just seven people in front of me to get into the Shelter.

Matthew Caws, Daniel Lorca and Ira Elliot walked around the Shelter nonchalantly in the post sound check period before the band actually took the stage. I watched as Lorca made small talk with some fans, grabbed a beer, and had one of the guys he was talking with light his cigarette for him.

Caws took the stage and slung his guitar over his shoulder with little fanfare, as Ira Elliot slid into place behind him at his drum kit. Caws looked at Lorca (bassist) who was still meandering thru the crowd and shrugged. Lorca hopped up on stage and nicked his bass off the amp it had been leaning on, and without hesitation, and just a puff from a cigarette the band launched into "Hyperspace," the first song on their September release, "The Proximity Effect." The crowd had blossomed into an intimate size of 60 or so.

The band continued the set with the second song on "The Proximity Effect," "Amateur" and after that began to mix it up, playing songs from their debut, as well as the new release. The small crowd collectively cheered when the opening chords to "Stalemate" off of "high/low" were played, and again roared quietly when the band whipped into "The Plan" another "high/low" track.

Caws and Lorca chattered back and forth on mike between songs, and occasionally with the audience. At one point Caws thanked the crowd for coming out, and said he was surprised to see this many people out for the show.

I looked around and thought he was making a joke.

He wasn't.

This was the first stop on their tour in support of their new record. They had just finished opening a series of dates with Ultimate Fakebook, who bassist Daniel Lorca describes as "Weezer on steroids."

The band proceeding energetically thru the set, and peaked unveiling a new song, "Treading Water." Before the song Caws said from stage, "We are hoping to record this one during the winter, now that we are our own label, we can release stuff when we want to."

The band concluded with a feedback filled version of "Firecracker," and calmly stepped off the stage, immediately setting up their merchandise table in the corner. A crowd swarmed around the band as they exchanged pleasantries with fans. Caws said after the show that they expect to hopefully get some recording done over the winter, and plan on doing another tour in the spring.

Nada Surf played virtually flawlessly, their live tracks mirroring what came off of both of their full-length albums. They were performing for a small crowd where everybody knew the words and it was a fitting enough launch to their own tour. It was a show more than worth the six bucks it cost for the ticket.

And no, they didn't play that famous song that was all over MTV. Apparently, it's not important to them to be "Popular" anymore.

Courtesy of Nada Surf

Nada Surf "rocked" The Shelter last Friday. Would we pay to see them? Nada Chance.