KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, Night Two

Publish date: 2024-07-21

Names on the marquee for the second night of the Almost Acoustic Christmas looked like the bands that would play a dream Coachella festival. After all, Depeche Mode, Coldplay, Jack Johnson and the White Stripes could all headline the Gibson Amphitheater on their own; put them on a bill together, the logic goes, and the audience will feel like they got a great treat. That ended up only partially true.

Names on the marquee for the second night of the Almost Acoustic Christmas looked like the bands that would play a dream Coachella festival. When compared to the hard-rock heavy lineup of day one, KROQ seemed to have put together a show that leaned toward the “special” claim of each Acoustic Christmas. After all, Depeche Mode, Coldplay, Jack Johnson and the White Stripes could all headline the Gibson Amphitheater on their own; put them on a bill together, the logic goes, and the audience will feel like they got a great treat. That ended up only partially true.

Call it the “almost” in the concert’s name. In the early ’90s, artists played acoustic, revamping their songs into mellower set-lists and often playing unique covers to bolster their sets. Only Jack Johnson did that here, adding a verse to “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” that made the song a more moralistic tale during a set that was full of his affable, reggae-fied originals.

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It would be unfair to expect the show to take that format again, but there was nothing resembling a stellar performance on stage – though they are almost all stellar bands. Depeche Mode opened with an exciting, thumping, slowed down “Personal Jesus” – and then spent the next half-hour exploring deep-album tracks that emptied half the seats in the room. When guitarist/songwriter Martin Gore took the mic away from charismatic frontman Dave Gahan to sing “A Question of Lust” clad in a bizarre mowhawked wig, you could hear the audience breathe a collective sigh.

This could have been a triumphant coda to Coldplay’s current tour, but the Brits felt a touch sloppy, with singer Chris Martin’s standard lyrical improvs (which name-checked the White Stripes and Death Cab and refered Depeche Mode as “the best band in the world”) getting in the way of the songs. Some of the set was brilliant, especially “Yellow,” which was made transcendent as confetti dropped down on the audience.

The White Stripes, as always, played their frenetic set without a setlist. A staple such as “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground” – in which Jack White switched from guitar to keys in the middle – took on a vibrant energy, culminating in a rousing, mandolin-led “Little Ghost.” Duo’s hour-long set made it clear that their improvisational skills have been developing along with Jack’s songwriting.

The Bravery and Hot Hot Heat suffered from not-Franz Ferdinand syndrome — both bands make similar dance-punk rock, but neither offers the scope of Franz Ferdinand’s best work. Death Cab for Cutie made it obvious they are still unaccustomed to playing large rooms; though their songwriting is smart and their melodies delicious, the subtlety of their sound is lost in a broad space. Nada Surf revisited their one-hit-wonder early ’90s song “Popular,” which sounded out-of-place in a set that focused mainly on their new, lovelorn record “The Weight is a Gift” (Barsuk.)

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