311 is going old school for its fall tour and that's music to the ears of long-time fans of the alternative rock band.
After a spring/summer tour in which the playlist was heavily skewed toward its latest album, Uplifter, the band has already embarked on its fall tour and is delighting loyal fans with a playlist top heavy with songs from its early albums.
Lead singer and song writer Nick Hexum posted the following comment on 311.com last week: "The fall tour is going to be great. Up close and personal. We've been dusting off some old gems for this run. It's going to be a high energy face melter."
Bass player P-Nut added during a recent interview with The Hour: "We're allowing ourselves more freedom to play deeper cuts."
Songs such as Offbeat Bareass, Plain and Freak Out are making their way onto the playlists, while radio hits such as Love Song and Come Original are not making the cut.
The tour may signal a getting-back-to-its-roots movement for the rock/reggae/funk band, which formed in 1988 and has featured the same lineup for nearly two decades. 311 has released nine studio albums -- four gold and two platinum -- but is better known for its high-energy live shows.
P-Nut, 311's bass player, admitted that some of the band's latest albums have veered from what "they love to do" in an attempt to please the record label and score radio hits.
"We tried to be what we think the radio wants us to be," said P-Nut, whose real name is Aaron Wills. "Artistically, that hasn't worked out well for us. We're not sculpted. We don't have image consultants."
P-Nut said the band is "leaning toward going independent" for its next album.
"We have our own studio and we can tour without support," he said. "That would allow us freedom to do what we want. I see us getting back to music that turns us on."
Shunning the radio hits on its fall tour may be the first step toward the band members returning to independence and writing music that pleases themselves and their fiercely loyal fans that they collected largely in grassroots fashion through touring aggressively. 311 Day -- held every other March 11 -- has already sold out its 12,000 tickets for the 2010 show in Las Vegas.
The fall tour, however, is swinging through the area this week and next, staring with a Sunday, Nov. 22, show at Mohegan Sun. State Radio is the opening act.
The tour then heads to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on Tuesday, Nov. 24, and -- after a show in Portland, Maine -- returns to the area for shows on consecutive nights at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, Friday, Nov. 27, and Saturday, Nov. 28. P-Nut is quick to point out that Hammerstein Ballroom is located at 311 West 34th St.
Tom Cantone, vice president of sports and entertainment at Mohegan Sun, said the venue suits a band like 311 perfectly. Tickets ($35 each) are still available for the 311 show.
"It's a modern concert arena with updated acoustics and intimate feel," he said. "Every seat is right where you want to be."
Mohegan Sun books about 100 concerts a year and is ranked as the fourth busiest arena in the world by Billboard Magazine. Cantone is excited to have 311 join the list of musicians who have played there.
"There's a big-time band and they've been around for a while," Cantone said. "It's the kind of music we like to have in our lineup. They are part of the American rock culture, which we like."
311 is a rarity in the rock world, having retained the same band members and style of music for nearly two decades. The band had five members: P-Nut, Hexum, Nick Mahoney on lead guitar, Chad Sexton on drums and SA Martinez on vocals and turntable.
"We're just lucky like that," P-Nut said about staying together for so long. "We disagree frequently, but we realize that each one of us has an opinion -- often a strong opinion. The longer we work together the better we are at listening to each other's point of view. We just love being together. We all bring a lot of personality and we love being ourselves.
"It's kind of magical and I'm thrilled that the experience is continuing," he added. "We'll keep it up as long as possible."
A search of YouTube videos yields 311 concert footage from the present and back to the early 1990s when the band was getting its start in Omaha, Neb.
"There are some amazingly old shows out there (on the Internet)," P-Nut said. "I'm thrilled about that. It's funny seeing us so skinny jumping around with our shirts off and having so much fun with the crowd. It didn't really matter. We were happy playing music for a living. That's what it was all about."
Apparently with its new tour, 311 is making it all about that again.
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