Albert Hammond Jr. Live Review

Driving away from the Albert Hammond Jr. show in Denver, "Last Night" played as yet another reminder of who Hammond is not.

Hammond is touring behind a solid solo debut, but he suffers from constant comparisons to his other band, The Strokes. The radio track only reinforced catchiness and edge often missing from Hammond's solo output.

Unfortunately for Hammond, Casablancas and Co. are not the only point of unfair comparison. He also struggles to match up to his dad's radio-friendly songwriting. The senior Hammond sang "It Never Rains in Southern California," wrote the Hollies' hit "The Air That I Breathe" and co-wrote Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."

Finally, his live show can't match the energy and volume of his regular touring companions, The Mooney Suzuki. The band, another bunch of hairy New Yorkers, gave a blockbuster performance to open the show.

With his Roger Daltrey howl, amp-climbing gymnastics and "Spinal Tap"-inspired shout-outs to the crowd, Sammy James Jr. hams it up like it's 1977 and he's playing a packed arena. In fact, given the entire band's clothes, hair and general enthusiasm, the Mooney Suzuki seems to have no idea it's 2007 and they are playing for about 200 people in a dark club.

They previewed a KISS-style anthem "99 Percent" and a goofy Kinks-inspired jingle "First Comes Love" from their upcoming album, Have Mercy. They also slipped in a couple of early tracks, but the hits from the major-label debut really got the crowd moving, particularly the three opening tracks, "In A Young Man's Mind," "Oh Sweet Susanna" and the title track, "Electric Sweat."

With guitarist Graham Tyler jumping into the crowd and James even riding one man's shoulders, the band actually had the young, energetic crowd clapping and dancing to the band - quite a feat at an indie rock show today.

The audience energy had fizzled and never quite revived during Hammond's set. Though fans were excited to spot Hammond's familiar curly mop, they quickly realized they weren't at a Strokes show when they didn't recognize most of the songs.

He opened with "Holiday," a funky mid-tempo number that is one of the album highlights, but didn't exactly send the crowd wild. "In Transit" and "Blue Skies" had a lukewarm reception - likely because they were the first two tracks posted on his MySpace page - but the rest of the album had only been out for five days, not enough time to learn and sing the tracks.

This story was originally published at www.hybridmagazine.com.