Fountains of Wayne - No Better Place: Live in Chicago

Fountains of Wayne writes songs about two very important things in life: drinking and women. Although I'm over simplifying it, that was my first impression of them when I first put on their break-through album Welcome Interstate Managers. I will also admit to actually being a little embarrassed to actually liking their MILF song "Stacy's Mom"... but then quickly found it too annoying for words. Still, it's such a good pop album, I'm sure you all own it already.

Good news for fans: their first ever DVD called No Better Place: Live in Chicago is coming out this Tuesday on Shout Factory. I have a screener copy for review, and the first thing I noticed that I was disappointed in was that it's edited. Songs like "Bright Future in Sales" had the 'shit' word removed (the word is an important part of the song). I suspect the reasoning for this was that this was intended for broadcast television.

The colors are vivid and the audio is clear in 5.1 Surround sound, it's only really a shame that it's not in bluray. Between the quick MTV-style cuts of at least seven different camera angles, the show is never that boring - although looking at some of the audience members, they seem underwhelmed. It's clearly a sit-down venue and everybody is standing in a row.

The majority of the setlist is taken from Welcome Interstate Managers, so you get to see songs interpreted live. Most of the songs are pretty similar to their studio counterparts (such as the wonderful "Mexican Wine"), however songs like "Hackensack" lacked that intimacy and smirk of hearing "talking" rhyming with Christopher Walken.

The bonus features on the DVD includes brand new acoustic performances of some recent songs, recorded in a New York studio in 2008. Some of the acoustic songs are from Traffic and Weather, but there's a few I didn't recognize.

If you love Welcome Interstate Managers, then No Better Place: Live in Chicago will be a good companion. Hardcore fans will want to pick this up for the new acoustic songs, but I suspect most of you will probably already have a bootleg of it or something.

Fountains of Wayne's No Better Place: Live in Chicago can be bought at most music store, but of course you can buy it direct ($16.98 + S&H).

Trivia: Dar Williams recently covered FoW's song "Troubled Times" on last year's Promised Land.