Fastball Gets 'Harsh' At Viper Room

08/23/2000 1:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(8/23/00, 1 p.m. ET) - Fastball kicked off its sneak preview club tour for its upcoming release The Harsh Light Of Day on Monday night (August 21) at the Viper Room on in Los Angeles.

Supplemented by an extra guitarist and keyboard player, the Austin, Texas, trio focused on much of the new album, due September 19, including the first single, "You're An Ocean," and other standouts like the psychedelic "Don't Give Up On Me" and the keyboard-thick "Goodbye." Older favorites from Fastball's 1998 hit album All The Pain Money Can Buy ("Fire Escape," "Out Of My Head," and "Sooner Or Later") were also performed, while the group reworked its most popular tune, "The Way," in an unplugged setting enhanced by accordion and bongos.

Songwriter/singer/guitarist Miles Zuniga told LAUNCH that sometimes touring can be out of control, even when a band reaches a certain level of recognition. "You still get into nonsense situations," he explained, "but it's not as acute because you're not going from playing a kick-ass show to some show that's just there to please the record company or someone. It's all back scratching and calling in favors and stuff. It's so political. What sucks about it is the political nature of something as simple and pure as music being used as this bargaining chip."

Although the Viper Room show was primarily an industry showcase, the band still managed to throw a curveball with a pair of covers that reflected its wide range of musical interests: Willie Nelson's "On The Road Again" and David Bowie's "Life On Mars."

The band seemed loose and enthused to be starting the tour with a show at the infamous Sunset Strip club, which was preceded two nights earlier by a performance on a boat off the coast of Los Angeles for a group of music industry insiders. "Where does Johnny Depp hang out when he's here?" joked guitarist/vocalist Zuniga, about the Viper's famous co-owner. "The super-secret Gwyneth Paltrow room," he surmised.Fastball arrives tonight (August 23) at the Cellar At Johnny Foley's in San Francisco. The tour features 15 stops, concluding with a show at the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas on September 13.

-- Darren Davis, New York, and Neal Weiss, Los Angeles

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