Hard to go gaa-gaa over unfocused Goo-Goo Dolls

Geoff Carter

Tuesday, July 20, 1999 | 9:29 a.m.

It's always good to watch a regular joe beat the odds. In 1993, when I was working a local used CD store, I couldn't sell a single copy of the Goo Goo Dolls' "Superstar Car Wash," even if the buyer was promised a free cheeseburger with the damn thing (I considered it).

Six years and a several soundtrack hits later the Goo Goos can fill Mandalay Bay's Events Center, as they did Sunday, and I've become a record store patron, just like you. Ah, the topsy-turvy fortunes of the common man.

This time, however, I felt like the free lunch should have been mine. The Goo Goos are an earnest, energetic bar band that seems lost on an arena stage. When the band played between No Doubt and headliners Bush at a 1995 Aladdin show -- once again, let's hear it for karma! -- they took pains to play to the entire crowd. When they found their microphones placed some 30 feet back from the crowd, vocalist/guitarist John Rzeznik and bassist Robby Takac did what any sensible bar band would do -- picked the mikes up and pushed them to the edge of the stage. They were the best band of the night, bar none, despite maudlin songwriting and bad haircuts.

The band that took the stage at Mandalay Bay was every bit as energetic, but less focused by half. "Eyes Wide Open" and "Long Way Down" were identifiable only by their choruses, and the way the band ran around the stage seemed more an act of nervous energy than emotional investment. Part of the blame lay with a sound mix that ranks among the worst I've heard, and Mandalay's all-concrete floor didn't help matters. The bass drum overwhelmed the players -- particularly a keyboardist the band might as well have set on fire.

Co-headliner Sugar Ray sounded better -- as good as the band can sound live, anyway. On record, it's a tuneful, almost huggable pop-rock group; on stage, it turns into a pack of horny dolts who try too hard. Playing against a stage backdrop culled from visual elements of Joe's Crab Shack, the Southern California doofuses tried their level best to be Your Penultimate Party Band (The P-Funk All Stars still live, and Sugar Ray knows it). They didn't come close -- undone by their use of age-old stage cliches and hokey stage props, including a basketball hoop (McGrath put up a brick!) and a marguerita cabana, staffed by a bored-looking roadie.

"Other bands have guitar techs, drum techs -- we've got our own bartender!" vocalist Mark McGrath bragged. Does McGrath know that Sammy Hagar is doing the same thing on his current tour? Next time, boys, bring a burger-slinger.