N.M.E.April ’99 The Goo Goo Dolls Singer John Rzeznik peers around nervously. This, for him, is a peculiar night. After all, his band are accustomed to playing the biggest venues in their native America with limos whisking them away at the end. Now, here they are in a modest student union with a black cab back to the Holiday Inn if they're lucky. Of course, it takes them a while to get used to this idea, and for the first few songs at least, their radio-friendly rock sounds a little more formal than you'd hope. They loosen up, though, and as they sail into the songs off their forthcoming 'Dizzy Up The Girl' album, they start to sound like the kind of B-grade Replacements bar band that you'd hoped they might be. And much like the late lamented 'Mats, at times they teeter on the borderline between wholesome indie-rock and Bon Jovi country, but their blue-collar rock wins out in the end with forthcoming single 'Slide' being the sort of effortless melancholia that will slot neatly into MTV rotation. Maybe we're not ready to go totally ga-ga over the Goo Goos, but that's not to say we never will. Jim Wirth |