Savage Garden Concert Reviews
August 11, 1998: Washington, D.C.: The Capitol Ballroom
From: Savage Garden's Teen Spirit
By Patrick Foster, Washington Post
Among the many strange phenomena the waning years
of this decade have wrought, the return of the teenybop group to the top
of the charts ranks among the most improbable. The oddball entry in the
quest for the teen dollar is Savage Garden, a duo from Brisbane, Australia,
that drew a large, curious crowd to the Ballroom on Tuesday night.
Guitarist-keyboardist Daniel Jones and singer Darren
Hayes were backed by three musicians and two vocalists, but the fresh-faced
lads (both just past 20) were clearly the stars. Hayes was the visual focus,
eliciting shrieks from the crowd as he rushed up and down a mini-staircase
and made athletic grasps of his pelvic region.
Jones, Hayes and their band did come to play music,
though, and play they did, covering nearly every song from their platinum
debut album. "Break Me Shake Me" and "Carry On Dancing" were up-tempo grooves
reminiscent of the Europop-disco of A-Ha, while the ballads "To the Moon
and Back" and "Truly Madly Deeply" may have reminded older listeners of
Spandau Ballet. Hayes and a female backing singer turned "Promises" into
an ostentatious story-song that wouldn't have been out of place in a soap
opera. Savage Garden closed with its best tune, the pulsing, mildly sexy
"I Want You." Like the "cherry cola" of that song's chorus, the set was
syrupy, sickly sweet and hard to swallow.
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