The Fray 10/17/06 @ The Aragon

The Fray's TV-ready songs, wholesome air wear thin

By Bob Gendron
Published October 17, 2006, 1:30 AM CDT

Network TV's popularity among viewers may be on the wane, but its appeal to contemporary musicians has never rated higher. With radio's once-dominant influence continuing to nose dive in the face of myriad entertainment options, artists are increasingly turning to serial TV programs for widespread exposure.

No act has benefited from such a strategy more than The Fray, which has become something of a phenomenon in light of its songs being featured on "Scrubs" and "Grey's Anatomy." Despite having just one album to its credit, the Denver piano-pop quartet quickly sold out back-to-back concerts at the Aragon, a rare feat for a veteran band let alone a rookie group.

Performing a 75-minute set Monday at the first of its two-night stand, The Fray got several assists from thousands of female admirers, whose piercing shrieks and high-pitched choruses occasionally prompted frontman Isaac Slade to step away from the microphone and bask in the appreciative glow. Singing gentle tunes seemingly directed at girls who patiently wait alone on bleachers for a boy to ask them to dance, Slade and his crew looked like clean-cut guys who mothers hope their daughters will bring home for dinner. Faith-streaked undercurrents and comforting themes buttressed this sense of wholesomeness, and hinted at the band's Christian rock crossover potential.

Augmented with a bassist, The Fray brought a harder-edged stomp to a handful of mid-tempo-rock selections, "Little House" shaking with intrigue and "She Is" twinkling with wish-upon-a-star brightness. "All At Once" said all the right things and gushed emotional electrolytes, the adult-contemporary number tailor-made to serve as background music for a dramatic scene involving a romantically conflicted character. The only thing missing was a script.

Still, Slade's pained moans and pointless dawdling couldn't conceal the paint-by-numbers quality that mired a majority of the plodding material. Slow beats, stock chords and simple piano bars predictably gave way to candy-floss hooks, while the band's melodic parallels to Coldplay became obvious when Slade relied on his falsetto. "Vienna" directly copped U2's "Gone," while an ill-advised cover of Queen's "We Will Rock You" did anything but.

Slade even floated atop the crowd during the smash "Over My Head (Cable Car)," but his precisely timed return to the stage betrayed the move's lack of spontaneity—and The Fray's ultimate dearth of ideas.


Click here to read the review on ChicagoTribune.com