OAR keeps the sound the fans love

By Rebecca Keister/Sun Chronicle Staff

MANSFIELD -- Worried that O.A.R. has abandoned its garage-style, live performance driven enthusiasm, in light of its recent commercial success?

Rest easy, because the band, getting its first taste of mainstream success after nearly a decade of word-of-mouth promotion, is going to great lengths to preserve its under-the-radar reputation.
The one thing missing from their headlining performance at The Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts in Mansfield Friday night was a performance of their first mainstream radio hit, `` Love and Memories.''

(Note: O.A.R. had not played the hit song well into their encore, when this reviewer left in order to meet a deadline.)

Ever since `` Stories of a Stranger,'' their second release from Lava/Atlantic, hit store shelves in fall 2005, longtime fans have been calling the band a `` sell out'' and saying they've become too conservative.

For a band that got its start with independent demo recordings that were sold almost entirely to college students, that is, in short, not so good.
But Friday night's show, which lasted well over two hours, should set the record straight.

O.A.R. live - and that really is what they are, a great, live band - is still O.A.R. live.

Only three songs from `` Stories of a Stranger'' appeared during their set: `` Heard The World,'' `` One Shot,'' and `` The Cover,'' a tribute to John Lennon that sounds a lot more like their old stuff than the somewhat sugary `` Love and Memories.''

It should also be noted, in the quest to prove O.A.R. still has it, that fans reacted most wildly to `` A Crazy Game of Poker,'' the bands first real hit, and `` Black Rock,'' a tribute their unofficial home town of Rockville, Md.

(Lead singer/rhythm guitarist Marc Roberge and drummer Chris Culos grew up there. Roberge played in local bands there with lead guitarist Richard On and Bassist Benji Gershman. They picked up saxophonist Jerry DePizzo at Ohio State University in 1997.)

Another big hit of the night was `` Hey Girl,'' from 2003's `` In Between Now and Then,'' a single just now is receiving its deserved air time.

As a final note, to any naysayers or ill-wishers for the band's big-time break: Come on! Don't they deserve it? And don't you, as original fans, have an obligation to be happy for them?

Three years, when they opened for 311 at the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, they had to do their own sound check.

They've come a long way, and they're grateful.

`` This is our biggest show ever. I'm looking (out) and you have no idea,'' Roberge screamed to the audience. `` I'm trying to take a picture in my head so I can remember it.''