Artist Description
In late 2003, Fountains of Wayne received a flattering, but rather puzzling, "Best New Artist" Grammy nomination. This certainly made long-time fans chuckle; those in the know knew that Welcome Interstate Managers, the album that spawned the ubiquitous "Stacy's Mom" and topped critics' polls everywhere, was actually the New York-based group's third collection of melodic pop/rock gems. And far from being a flash in the pan, the quartet was considered by many to be — in the words of Robert Christgau — "peerless" and "true art heroes", or as Entertainment Weekly called them, "America's greatest extant rock and roll band." But FOW couldn't help enjoying the new-found attention as they began headlining bigger venues, topping charts on MTV and VH1, and appearing on a "Now That's What I Call Music" compilation CD next to the likes of Jay-Z, Nickelback and Black Eyed Peas.Former schoolmates Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood formed Fountains of Wayne in 1996 as a vehicle for their mutual love of pop songcraft. Their second album, 1999's widely-heralded Utopia Parkway, featured all four members in the recording studio, as did 2003's breakthrough Welcome Interstate Managers. By now, the band has developed a sixth sense for arranging Schlesinger and Collingwood's songs. And while the records have gotten progressively more detailed and nuanced, FOW live remains a lean, loud guitar band with a decade's worth of singalong faves to pick from.
Tonight, Collingwood plays an acoustic set of Fountains of Wayne material as well as a number of self-penned tunes.
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