The hot making group is on tour with Edwin McCain
Adult-contemporary rock group Train brought an energetic 90-minute set of hits and covers to Wolf Trap on Wednesday (Aug 20th). Frontman Pat Monahan was in high spirits and great voice as he and his band ran through nearly 20 songs.
I’ll confess: Monahan is one of those voices I’ve been eager to hear live for quite some time. No one else has his combination of range and brightness. It’s a voice you can’t help but respond to with a smile when you hear it.
To open the night, Monahan showed off another dimension to that voice: he threw a little twang on it for “Brokenhearted,” Train’s latest single. The band continued with “Calling All Angels” and “If It’s Love.” During the latter, Monahan stalked the front row and took selfies on phones that the lucky few who lined the stage handed to him.
A short while later, during “The Joker,” which Train combined with “Meet Virginia,” Monahan threw T-shirts into the crowd. He even had the whole band sign the last shirt, but made a joke of throwing it, and instead dropped it on stage. (Unless he gave it to someone in the front row? I didn’t see. Either way, it was funny.
“Save Me San Francisco” saw huge branded balloons bounce around the audience. A train concert is a show to come and rock out to one of the best voices in music, but it’s also a place to have fun. The band’s joy is infectious, and it’s clear they love what they do.
They also have fun with the music, mixing in covers with their originals. A showstopper was Train’s rendition of Teddy Swims’ megahit “Lose Control.” It proved two things: Monahan can sing anything, and Teddy himself is headed for superstardom; the crowd knew every word.
Special for the crowd at Wolf Trap, Train broke out a deep cut from the Drops of Jupiter album, “Mississippi.” A slow-burning with a warped guitar-and-keys riff, Monahan called it his “favorite song” from their seminal album.
Late-90s hitmaker Edwin McCain opened the show with a 45-minute set that included everything from his first radio single to music off his latest project, Lucky. It’s his first record of new material in several years, which, McCain tells me in an exclusive interview backstage at Wolf Trap, he was encouraged to do thanks to his friend Lee Brice.
On stage, McCain told some of the stories behind his songs, like the one he wrote for his 16-year-old six months before she was born. His biggest hit, “I’ll Be,” earned a standing ovation, and a closing coupling of covers in a mashup was a fun way to end the set. But my favorite is the easygoing earworm, “Kool Kids,” off the new album.
McCain said he decided to record a new record after such a large delta between projects was because of this resurgence in the popularity of 90s music. And it’s true—everywhere from neo-traditional country’s comeback to the Backstreet Boys’ multi-date residency at the futuristic Sphere—the love for 90s music is at an all-time high.
The 90s music aesthetic didn’t end with Y2K. That means Train and their sound still benefit from this nostalgia. It was an era when songwriting and musical style created lasting hits. Train will continue down these tracks for a long time to come.
