On Stage, Soul Asylum Shinescopyright sonymusic

By Ira Robbins Newsday (New York), 03-08-1995


SOUL ASYLUM. The sound of things to come. Monday night at Tramps, 51 W. 21st St., Manhattan. Cellophane opened.

IT'S HARD TO THINK of many bands that wouldn't be sorely upstaged by Bruce Springsteen. Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner allowed as much, after the Boss paid a return call to Tramps to join the group for an entertainingly sloppy swipe at "Tracks of My Tears" Monday: "It's all downhill from here, ladies and gentlemen," quipped the dreadlocked singer-guitarist.

In fact, the show - a casual, semi-publicized club date slotted in during the Minneapolis post-punks' stay in New York mixing the followup to their multi-platinum "Grave Dancers Union" album - only got better. Springsteen's designated hit might have added a few extra runs to the effort, but the team was already on its way to an easy rout. It hasn't been that long since Soul Asylum's career ascended to a point where playing clubs becomes a luxury, not a necessity, and the small stage fit the quintet like an old plaid shirt. If there was any concern that the 15-year core of Pirner, guitarist Dan Murphy and bassist Karl Mueller - joined by hard-hitting new drummer Sterling Campbell (making his public debut with the group) and keyboardist Joey Huffman - had forgotten its hard-traveling past since hitting the big time, such fears were quickly put to rest.

Sure, the idea of Bruce Springsteen's even knowing of Soul Asylum would have been inconceivable back when the band was making such spectacular indie-label records as "Made to Be Broken," and Pirner's movie-star girlfriend, Winona Ryder, might have been waiting in the wings. But none of that indisposed Soul Asylum to be its usual stray-dog, tuneful, hard-rock self. If the first steps were a bit tentative, the quintet accelerated through the 70-minute set toward the ragged glory of all-out feedback rave-ups.

Other than a couple of covers and a pair ("New World" and "Homesick") from 1992's "Grave Dancers Union," all of the songs were new. Still, the band rose to the challenge of unfamiliarity, and so did the audience, which made no vocal objections to the lack of old favorites. (Or to the inclusion of Pirner's trumpet solo.) Campbell sounded a bit rigid for this loose-limbed band,but held his own in the hot seat and settled in better once the groove got rolling.

It would be premature to hazard a guess about the qualities of the forthcoming album based on this low-key gig, but the collection of songs premiered was quite promising. With Murphy and Pirner doing the joint lead vocals that were an early Soul Asylum trademark, the Tom Petty-ish "Bittersweet Heart" sent the Top 40 commercialism meter into the red-flag zone. "Just Like Anyone," however, was firmly in the old rock-rave pocket, and ended in howls of Murphy feedback. "I Did My Best," a finely wrought heartland ballad, sounded a lot like the Band's "The Weight," while "Crawl" contrasted mild-mannered verses with a barbed-wire blues chorus. "Eyes of a Child" was a wrenching folk-rocker about an adolescent hooker; the Dylanesque "Misery" put a memorably plaintive melody to lyrics about suicide; "String of Pearls" brought all of Pirner's storytelling skill to bear on a hallucinatory narrative in which Siamese twins grow up to be the first president with two heads.

Stardom has trapped Soul Asylum for the moment between its long-exercised creative will and a new audience hungry for another "Runaway Train." Judging by the divergently aimed raw material presented Monday night, the group is not unlike that fictional head of state: solidly of two minds.

Copyright 1996, Newsday Inc.

Robbins, Ira, Soul Asylum Still a Strong Road Team., Newsday, 03-08-1995, pp B07.


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