Luxury, Click Five pitch posh pop at Paradise
By Jim Sullivan
Sunday, July 12, 2009 - Added 7d 19h ago


Rock ’n’ roll is such a fragmented entity these days, a huge field populated by many subgenres. But lately, power pop’s made a comeback, of sorts.

Folks got a heaping helping at the Paradise on Saturday night. The Luxury headlined, celebrating the release of its second CD, “In the Wake of What Won’t Change.” The Click Five, anticipating the fall release of its third CD, preceded the Luxury (MidAtlantic, Aloud and Chris Ayer performed earlier.)

Power pop was a term that came into vogue during the early ’70s with such bands as Big Star, Badfinger and Raspberries, and it continued into the ’80s with Cheap Trick and the Yachts. At its best, it had heavenly vocal harmonies and glue-sticking melodies, backed by rock-ribbed rhythms. Sweet sounds delivered with punch and, sometimes, spiked with cynicism. And it had lots of pep. But, as the hip alt-rock world got more dissonant power pop slipped to the sidelines.

Ah, but that is where the Click Five lives and where the Luxury spends a lot of its time. The Luxury’s lead singer-songwriter-guitarist Jason Dunn says he considers his a pop band. Fair enough. The quintet’s 70-minute set was pop-centered, but its construction was total Pink Floyd - the entire new album, with songs played sequentially and separate videos accompanying them. Plus, occasional string and horn players and a female vocalist backing up.

The Luxury is a pop/prog-rock hybrid. Two of the encores, The Who’s “Pinball Wizard” (with the Click Five’s Kyle Patrick joining on vocals and acoustic rhythm guitar) and Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels,” brought home that point. Their originals mostly hit their marks - lyrical themes of loneliness and self-defeat buoyed by surging melodies. The Luxury balanced touches of tenderness and angst with an Oasis-like glide ’n’ crunch.

The Click Five, comprised of Berklee College grads, is in a curious position. The outfit’s huge in Asia - having sold a couple of million discs - but relatively obscure Stateside and in Boston. Members are attempting to rectify that. They recently completed a Lizard Lounge residency and are conceptually retooling themselves. Initially pegged as a rock ’n’ roll boy band, the guys are, well, still cute, but they’d like to not play in the would-be teen idol game.

And they need not. Their 10-song, 40-minute set had only two older songs (plus Elvis Costello’s “Pump It Up”) and it had a Cheap Trick kind of energy. They hit an early high with the infectious “I Quit! I Quit! I Quit!” - a song about getting another shot - and maintained an effervescent snap ’n’ pop throughout.

THE LUXURY, with CLICK FIVE

At the Paradise, Saturday night.
jim@jimsullivanink.com