FUN. with STEEL TRAIN and POSTELLES - 12.3 @ Royale

The Fun. show was exactly what you'd expect -- fun. But let's start with Postelles. Typical Hives/Vines/Strokes kind of a band, but great to get the vibe going. The hipster population increased tenfold from what the Theatre District usually sees (apparently I missed the memo on plaid). Moving on. Steel Train's Jack Antonoff (also in Fun.) brought the fun to Royale in a way that was sickenly sweet. At moments it was like eating an entire container of frosting -- seems like a good idea at first, but half way through it's just way too much of a good thing. The band wrote a song for a children's performance entitled "It's Fun to Dance," whose lyrics were literally, "It's fun/to dance/it's really fun to dance." Yes, it was endearing, but until "Road Song," you could not take the band seriously.

And then the band gathered in a semi-circle center stage to sing their ballad about living their lives as traveling musicians, an ode to anyone who's ever fumbled with a steel guitar to himself, traveling alone down a dirt road without a clear destination, just enjoying where he is at that moment.

When Fun. came on, I'm pretty sure half the crowd expected the show to turn into a Format concert, with Nate Ruess staring blankly into space and focusing on singing a song, stuck in his own head rather than connecting with the audience.

But this was the first time I had seen Nate actually smile. This was the first time I had seem him appearing to actually have fun while performing. Hopefully that was the point of making this band. They opened with "Be Calm" and the rest of the night was a good time from then on. And in the ambiance of Royale, with gold plated, royally painted ceilings and red-lit bars, we could have easily been watching the hippest circus performance Boston has ever seen.