The BoDeans deliver for De Pere crowd

Concert review The BoDeans Three stars out of four

By Kendra Meinert
Press-Gazette

DE PERE — The bowl runneth over.

An estimated crowd of 20,000-plus poured into the grassy bowl at Voyageur Park Saturday night to hear The BoDeans run through a stable of songs that have become favorite festival fare in Wisconsin.

“Holy ----!” singer/guitarist Sammy Llanas exclaimed as he got his first look at the elbow-to-elbow masses.

While fans had to toil for their part of the concert-going experience — lines to get into the park were long and slow and navigating the gridlock to get a beer became an Olympic event — the Waukesha rock band, as usual, made easy work of its 95 minutes on stage.

With the instantly recognizable galloping guitar of “Still the Night,” Llanas, co-frontman Kurt Neumann, bassist Bob Griffin and guest drummer Kevin Leahy opened a set that covered much of the same territory as previous BoDeans concerts. Few departures or surprises.

In other words, it was The BoDeans just the way fans seem to prefer them: familiar and feel-good.

There were the usual audience sing-alongs of “Naked” and “Good Things,” but despite its size, the crowd wasn’t always as enthusiastic as others have been in the past.

To a similar extent, neither was the band. While a smiling Llanas worked the crowd and the stage, Neumann seemed almost sullen at times.

It wasn't quite the quintessential Northeastern Wisconsin BoDeans lovefest that the 1996 concert at the Kewaunee County Fair proved to be (a warm August night compared with a cold May night). But when they clicked, they clicked like only The BoDeans can.

Among the highlights were a bouncy “Texas Ride Song,” a leaner, meaner “Count on Me” and a full-on “She’s a Runaway,” with a Neumann-fueled guitar jam and Leahy (who deserved an introduction from stage) working hard on the drums.

The Llanas-Neumann harmony is still a thing of beauty as proved by “Idaho,” “Good Things” and new song “Wild World,” and Llanas can still stoke the crowd with “Feed the Fire.”

But the artist who worked the hardest on stage was opener Michael McDermott, who showed another side to fans who caught his acoustic club gig last year.

Playing with a full band, the tousled-hair storyteller from Chicago delivered a soulful hour of music that seduced with its hooks (“20 Miles South of Nowhere”), haunted with its lyrics (“Junkie Girl”) and rocked with its attitude (“Unemployed”) — always leaving an impression.