The Fray ‘How to Save a Life” Tour 07.16.2007
July 17, 2007 by FromTheCrowd
Filed under Concert Reviews
From the Crowd will have two staff reviews of this show. One, from a long time Fray concert follower and another from someone who saw The Fray for the first time with last nights show. If you’d like to contribute a fan review of the show, please visit our contribute page.
As an obvious ode to their association with medical shows… ha just kidding. The Fray show, at the Dodge Theater on July 16, demonstrated that The Fray do not take themselves too seriously, poking fun at their own success of their insanely popular “How to Save a Life”, in relation to medical shows, but more importantly showed their fans that they have completely matured into their role as a headlining act. Ladies and gentleman, The Fray have learned to entertain.
Armed with fabulous lighting, improved set list and stage production such as film clips to accompany their songs, The Fray, skyrocketed their entertainment value and performed one of the best shows Phoenix has seen, not only from them, but all artists in some time. If you have been a long time Fray fan and been to any number of their shows, you have known in the past that, you would always hear great live music, however, the stage presence and performance factor might be on… or off and this often had to do with the crowd themselves.
Last night, while the pit and selected areas, stood for the entire show and really seemed to be “in” to the performance, a great deal of people remained seated for a good deal of the performance. I know that this can be interpreted as the crowd, not being “into it” (which was not the case), and this is when, from prior experience, the performance aspect of The Fray would retreat, however, this was not the case last night. The Fray entertained the entire 90 minutes of their set, often yelling out to the crowd to encourage them to stand up… in some cases, it was effective; however, it didn’t deter The Fray, it only enhanced their performance. Isaac Slade, the lead singer of The Fray, who is usually seated at his piano for an entire performance, was up and active, walking around the stage, playing to the crowd. Trust me, the crowd was soaking it up, but they I am certain they appeared a bit lifeless to the stage.
One of the highlights of the night came from a lighthearted cover performance. The Fray typically features a cover song every performance, and for this show, they performed “Shakira Shakira”, which had Ben Wysocki, their drummer performing many of the vocals. It was perhaps one of the most entertaining moments that the Dodge Theater has seen. Everyone was standing as Isaac had requested, calling our sections that had not stood. Walla, the crowd became active participants, laughing, singing along and enjoying the moment, that countless fans ensured would be on YouTube by midnight as they filmed the performance. After it was over, well, the crowd all sat down again… what is with Arizona crowds?
The show was concluded with a three song encore, in which Isaac paid tribute to their humble beginnings with shows here in Phoenix, six in total, and thanked the fans that been there from the start. He let the crowd know that The Fray would be taking a year off, and hopefully recording a new CD in that time frame, which of course, the audience roared with delight. At the conclusion of the show, the fans were abuzz with the entertaining performance, many proclaiming it was the best show they’d seen in a long time in the Valley.
