Review & setlist: Hootie & The Blowfish brought Fenway back to the '90s, mostly in a good way (2024)

Concert Reviews

The band tackled some expertly executed covers and all the hits you remember during a rainy night at the ballpark.

By Marc Hirsh

June 22, 2024

Hootie & The Blowfish, with Barenaked Ladies, Collective Soul and Edwin McCain, at Fenway Park, Friday, June 21

Just like Nirvana, Hootie & The Blowfish came out of nowhere and suddenly, abruptly became impossibly, unsustainably huge. Nirvana at least had the good sense to be conflicted if not outright antagonistic towards their massive popularity. Hootie & The Blowfish seemed to enjoy the baffling whirlwind, and they’ve never been forgiven for it.

Granted, even before the songs onCracked Rear Viewhit their cultural oversaturation point, there had always been a credibility gap between the two bands that worked to the advantage of the Pacific Northwest band of misfits who trucked in noise, chaos and emotional disaffection over an amiable South Carolina group that peddled in edgeless, borderline-cornball roots-pop anthems. But voices of a generation come in many different flavors, and Friday at a packed, rain-pelted Fenway Park, it was hard to deny that those 22 million copies ofCracked Rear Viewhelped define the ’90s for a lot of people, and not without reason.

For one thing, Hootie & The Blowfish presented themselves more as a legacy act than a nostalgia act, a fine distinction but one that came across in the way that their songs weren’t played as if they were trapped in amber. Some of that surely rests on the shoulders of singer Darius Rucker, whose continuing success as a country artist both keeps him in active shape as a performer and makes it unnecessary to drag out his old band to relive his glory days. He was clearly a star, with an easygoing command akin to Tim McGraw.

But from the appealingly jittery bounce of “I Go Blind” that kicked things off, the whole band took the stage with full confidence in their material, even if it wasn’t always strictly warranted. (Shoeless guitarist Mark Bryan, in particular, jumped heedlessly into rapping when the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo Money Mo Problems” popped up in the middle of “Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)” before aping Chuck Berry’s signature duckwalk.) “Only Wanna Be With You” was sugary, and the bright, rootsy churn of “Hannah Jane” was upbeat to the point of perky. Plenty of songs seemed to sand down the Band and the Rolling Stones’Let It Bleed, with Lee Turner’s organ serving as the secret sauce distinguishing otherwise undistinguished (if punchy) bar-band rock.

Hootie & The Blowfish navigated the ups and downs of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” so deftly, in fact, that it argued that they really were a good bar band that simply became unreasonably massive. Certainly they came off more convincing on the covers that made up nearly half their set. They proved themselves an effective country combo with the bluegrass of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken?” and the amiable hoedown of “Wagon Wheel,” while Tom Waits’s “I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You” offered country directness and simplicity. And adoring versions of “Losing My Religion” and “Interstate Love Song” captured them in the thrall of a formative band and one whose cool they were in awe of, respectively.

It all implicitly argued that Hootie & The Blowfish might have gotten more respect if they’d just had stronger material; certainly Rucker’s warm, chesty baritone might have been far better appreciated. That came out in the most recent song in the setlist, as 2019’s “Miss California” had a little extra kick to it as well as a ringing, insistent guitar that sounded like a smile that couldn’t quite hide the melancholy. It was an affecting number, and the band wrote it themselves.

The acts that Hootie & The Blowfish brought along with them weren’t exactly a murderers’ row of ’90s bands, but they were at least maybe a tax-fraudsters’ row. Accompanied by electric guitar and saxophone, Edwin McCain sang lugubrious post-grunge sensitive-guy acoustic pop.

Collective Soul followed by revealing itself as arguably the band that Pearl Jam precursor Mother Love Bone wanted to be, all drop-D guitars, watery wah-wahs, thick drums and glammy rockstar vibes from frontman and admitted Berklee dropout Ed Roland. “Where The River Flows” was slippery and lightly grinding but pop-minded nonetheless, and a three-Ed (with McCain and Barenaked Ladies singer Ed Robertson in tow) cover of “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” was spirited enough to be nearly convincing, while the dramatic scope of “The World I Know” blossomed into a chorus that hit like sunlight on the face.

Following a nearly two-hour delay during which Fenway Park was cleared due to a downpour and threats of an electrical storm —the second in as many nights — the Barenaked Ladies provided pep without energy for 45 minutes. Amid cutesypoo-clever trifles like “If I Had $1000000,” a karaoke-fied “One Week,” and their extended theme song to“The Big Bang Theory,” they played a nonsensical medley of other people’s songs including Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire,” Harry Styles’s “As It Was,” “Take On Me” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” from“The Sound Of Music.” Closing with a full cover of Def Leppard’s “Rock Of Ages” for no apparent reason, they offered forced whimsy and unearned sincerity in whatever ratio you wish.

Setlist for Hootie & The Blowfish at Fenway Park, June 21, 2024

• I Go Blind (54-40 cover)
• I Will Wait
• Time
• Running From An Angel
• For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield cover)
• Hannah Jane
• Not Even The Trees
• Will The Circle Be Unbroken? (Carter Family cover)
• Desert Mountain Showdown
• I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You (Tom Waits cover)
• Wagon Wheel (Old Crow Medicine Show cover)
• Miss California (Imperfect Circle)
• Hey, Hey, What Can I Do (Led Zeppelin cover)
• Solitude (Edwin McCain cover) (with Edwin McCain)
• Old Man & Me (When I Get To Heaven)
• Let Her Cry
• Losing My Religion (R.E.M. cover)
• Alright (Darius Rucker cover)
• Hold My Hand

ENCORE:

• Interstate Love Song (Stone Temple Pilots cover)
• Only Wanna Be With You

Marc Hirsh can be reached at[emailprotected]or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social.

Editor’s note: This review has been updated to more accurately reflect the number of copies of “Cracked Rear View” sold since its initial release.