Hatfield puts on full-throttle show in homecoming

The Boston Globe: May 30, 1995

By Steve Morse, GLOBE STAFF

  Juliana Hatfield wasn't joking. When she promised to rock more on this tour, she meant it. She headed in that direction on her new album, "Only Everything," and she steered down a similar high-decibel, guitar-rocking path last night at the sold-out Avalon club, where 1,500 fans caught a full-throttle show that cast aside any notion of her being a shy, innocent waif.

  Some songs needed more melody, and some would have profited from a better vocal mix, but Hatfield could not be accused of taking it easy in her homecoming appearance at the largest club in town. She'll do it again tonight (tickets still remain); and the openers will again be Jeff Buckley (son of famed 60s folkie Tim Buckley) and Bostonians Cold Water Flat, who each had moments of high, if not consistent, intensity.

  Hatfield, a Berklee College of Music graduate by way of Duxbury, has not sold as many records as expected with "Only Everything," which fell to no. 190 on the Billboard charts last week (after seven weeks of release). Acts such as Hatfield and Belly were supposed to be the next big modern-rock success stories (Belly even made the cover of Rolling Stone), but so far it hasn't happened.

  Still, there's no shame in selling out Avalon-and there was no shame in last night's performance. In an anti-fashion statement, Hatfield emerged wearing a basic white t-shirt and bluejeans (looking as if she'd just left an auto body shop), but she played with a slashing drive that prompted some frenzied moshing up front. She said little between songs, but the music said it for her-keenly high-pitched vocals amid dense slabs of her guitar. She was aided by her regular rhythm section-drummer Todd Phillips, bassist Dean Fisher and two fine new members in second guitarist Ed Slanker and keyboardist Lisa Mednick.

  The new musicians helped flesh out the sound, which had a hammer-down energy from the start with "Idols"and "What a Life." Hatfield's girlish voice was overwhelmed at times by the volume, but showed increased power from previous visits. She ignited the mosh pit with "Fleur de Lys" and "Congratulation," with its spat-out line: "I don't know what I like, only what I don't." Deadline pressure made it impossible to catch her entire show, but her continued improvement was obvious.

  Buckley's hour-long set with a four-piece band was filled with extremes; some positive, some not. At tines he sang with far too much arch solemnity, sounding pretentiously like a reedy, cut-rate version of the Doors' Jim Morrison. Buckley was much better when he picked up the tempo on a surprise, punky cover of the MC5's "Kick Out the Jams' and on the radio hit, "Last Goodbye," where he played tasty slide guitar.

  Boston trio Cold Water Flat had many strong moments, though not enough strong songs. Still, singer Paul Janovitz sang with mounting confidence. And the closing "Magnetic North Pole" (the band's radio single) suggested that high potential remains.