Review: Weezer goes ‘Blue’ in latest Gen-X package tour to pack a Minnesota sports venue

The bands that played Xcel Energy Center Wednesday night were never supposed to play arenas. These were early-’90s bands favored by nerds and weirdos. They didn’t have the angst or the even-flow haircuts of that era’s grunge bands du jour. They were witty, cartoonish and melodic. No way could they make it in a big sports-venue concert.

And yet here were Weezer, the Flaming Lips and Dinosaur Jr. not only playing St. Paul’s hockey arena, but packing it floor to ceiling — even after a summer already laden with a lot of highly attended Gen-X rock shows in the Twin Cities. (See also: Green Day/Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters/Pretenders, Metallica’s two-nighter and both the Minnesota Yacht Club festival and Basilica Block Party.)

Wednesday was opening night on this trio of strange bedfellows’ monthlong U.S. package tour. Aside from a few technical glitches and some stiff moments during the headliner Weezer’s highly staged performance, the trek got off to an exuberant, smile-inducing start with a lot of memorable ‘90s- and ‘00s-era songs to spark big singalongs from the 13,000 or so fans.

Dinosaur Jr. hit the crowd with about a half-minute of squelching guitar noise when it hit the stage, and then bassist Lou Barlow — whose bass gear wasn’t working — screamed and bellowed through the first song while frontman J. Mascis mostly stood behind his towering guitar rig.

But the Boston trio got the kinks and the freaky stuff out of the way and came out of its shell to wham-bam the half-full crowd with under a half-hour of its best-loved tunes, including “Feel the Pain,” “Freak Scene” and its fuzzed-up cover of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven.”

Oklahoman psychedelic orchestral punks the Flaming Lips hit the stage in an entirely different kind of weird way, pumping out a recording of Merle Haggard’s anti-weirdo anthem “Okie From Muskogee” while frontman Wayne Coyne urged the crowd to sing along. Oh, the irony. Coyne’s crew started off rather serious from there, playing two tunes off their 1999 opus “The Soft Bulletin” in rather no-nonsense fashion.

Then came the nonsense that has long earned the Lips a reputation as a truly spectacular live act; as in: spectacle-making. Lasers lit up and two towering, pink, inflatable robots were blown up during “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 1.” Coyne put on a wizard outfit and twirled a wand in “She Don’t Use Jelly.” A rainbow appeared overhead for the finale “Do You Realize??” That was a lot for just a 45-minute set; which wasn’t enough.

Dubbing its current trek the Voyage to the Blue Planet Tour — a nod to the 30th anniversary of its self-titled debut, aka “The Blue Album” — Weezer went all in on the interplanetary theme. It brought out a rocky planet stage design and lots of “Star Wars”-y backdrop video imagery. The four band members also wore matching astronaut jumpsuits.

With all that going on, it wasn’t surprising the group seemed a little distracted and not fully strapped in upon takeoff on opening night. The crowd stood rather stone-faced in the opening song “II. Anonymous.” Frontman Rivers Cuomo — a notoriously unanimated bandleader — seemed especially wooden and distracted even as fans sang along with delight to “Dope Nose” and “Pork and Beans” early in the set.

What little talking Cuomo did between songs was also filled with less-than-stellar interstellar comments.

“We are 30 light-years out from ‘The Blue Album,’ ” he said near the start. “We are happy to be going back. Thank you for coming on this dangerous and important mission.”

Weezer saved its full “Blue Album” performance until the end, which worked out way better than the spacey banter. In the interim, it loosely worked its way backward chronologically from 2000s-era hits such as ”Island in the Sun” and “Beverly Hills” to “Getchoo,” “Pink Triangle” and two more songs off what is actually the band’s best and weirdest album, 1996′s “Pinkerton.”

By the time Cuomo and Co. got to “My Name Is Jonas” to kick off the “Blue Album” segment, they were locked into orbit.

Of course, the band has been playing “Blue” tunes like “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So” at all of its concerts since 1994, so no surprise those songs soared. But the guys also showed bursting energy in lesser-played album cuts like “The World Has Turned and Left Me Here” and the lengthy, space-jammy closing song “Only in Dreams.” There was no encore after that — and nothing odd about that, either. Mission accomplished.