Free was too high a price to pay for the Better Than Ezra concert last night at Mayo Park in Rochester Minnesota. In spite of an outstanding summer eve, mediocre instrumentation, lack of energy, poor mix, and truly awful lead vocals made one wish you were at a fifth-grade band concert instead.
The tone – or lack thereof – for the evening was set with the band’s opening number, Good. For the first 30 seconds I seriously believed that front-man Kevin Griffin was singing in some self-mocking off-key way before he launched into true form. Alas, it was not to be. Whether it was lack of preparation, age, poor stage feedback, laziness, pre-partying, or a deadly combination of all of the above, Griffin’s singing throughout the evening was abysmal. To add to this, the sound mix – unusually, in my experience – promoted his vocals and muted the instrumentation, so every jarring off-key note was literally amplified, much to our dismay.
BTE has a few well-known songs, and I was looking forward to hearing King of New Orleans, Desperately Wanting, and Good. The – really, unbelievably – terrible vocals and uninspired band unfortunately left me so disappointed that I had to stream the album versions of the song on the way home to purge the dissonance from my mind. To their credit, the band threw in a few covers that one wouldn’t expect to hear; to their detriment, the covers suffered from the same poor singing and undistinguished musicianship. Feel Good Inc. from Gorillaz was too ambitious, the Ramones’ I Wanna Be Sedated had no energy – which is an accomplishment! – and Bowie’s Let’s Dance was just…boring?
Following on the unprepared theme, Griffin’s stagemanship was cringe-worthy. He shot down a local coffee shop by name, repeatedly saying, “It’s no Starbucks!” – as if that was the worst insult he could come up with. He couldn’t remember the call letters or the frequency of the local radio station – Minnesota 97.5 KNXR – that sponsored the concert. His stage patter consisted mostly of reminding us of how amazing his band was and how many hits they had. He praised the legacy of Minnesota music, but then stumbled trying to come up with Minnesota bands. But perhaps the most egregious moment of the night was when he tried to pay homage to Prince, stumbling through some of the opening lyrics of Purple Rain in off-key fashion. Thankfully he quit before I started howling. The Purple One was no doubt clawing at the cover of his casket in agony.
I am hoping for the sake of future concert-goers that this was an aberration, and that the band just had a few too many pre-concert Mai Tais at Kathy’s Pub. Because otherwise, if this was Better Than Ezra, I certainly hope I never see Ezra…
© Michael Stoos 2026