Rooney rocks out at Chain
Reaction
By Dylana Foy
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Los Angeles rock quintet Rooney was back in town with a performance at Chain
Reaction in Anaheim Friday night to a crowd of mostly teenage girls singing loudly
to the music.
The band played many old favorites off their self-titled record released in 2003,
and threw in new songs from a CD to be released April 2006. The band consists
of lead singer Robert Carmine, whom many girls will recognize as the lead heartthrob
in the Disney movie “The Princess Diaries,” and bandmates Taylor
Locke (guitar), Matt Winters (bass), Louie Stephen (keyboard) and Ned Brower
(drums).
The L.A. rock band has been compared to such greats as the Beatles, the Cars,
Weezer, Blur and the Beach Boys.
They have a retro sound with a Britpop feel and put on an entertaining show to
support their catchy songs. Carmine comes from a family of entertainers — actor
and former Phantom Planet drummer Jason Schwartz-man (“Shopgirl,” “Bewitched,” “Rushmore”)
watched his younger brother perform from the back of the club and spent some
time afterwards posing for pictures and chatting with the crowd.
Rooney entered the stage to a roaring audience and played two songs from their
self-titled CD, then played a new song called “I Don’t Think So.” The
song showed a more edgy Rooney. It boasted a great guitar solo with long musical
breaks and a sound that had a little more metal than previous songs. Some audience
members were yelling out songs they wanted to hear, but Carmine said “We’re
playing new songs, if that’s alright. We played our old record a lot.” The
audience cheered with the excitement of getting to hear new, unreleased songs.
Of the 13 songs they played, five were new. “A Better Place,” “Not
So Easy,” “Enough’s Enough,” “Paralyzed” and “The
Juice” were all new edgier songs they played.
Carmine had a lot of interaction with the audience, mostly to tell the young
crowd to shout louder and dance more. He asked the crowd to sing along with him
to “Blueside,” their first single, and to help out with one of their
new songs by keeping the tempo by clapping. Unfortunately, the crowd didn’t
know how to keep a beat, or were too pumped with adrenaline, but they clapped
faster and faster until Carmine had to tell everyone to slow down and take it
easy. After 10 songs Carmine said,’“We were supposed to walk off,
but we forgot, so we’re gonna keep playing.”
As the show drew to a close, the air was still full of excitement. Usually at
this point, the band is supposed to step off the stage before coming back for
an encore. Carmine decided he would be less subtle: “We’re gonna
walk off and you’re all gonna scream, right? And you’ll scream so
loud we’ll come back out, right?” The announcement was unnecessary,
considering the crowd was already screaming for them, but it was comic. The band
finally left, and as the crowd got louder and louder, they came back and performed
their most popular, “I’m Shakin’,” where they asked everyone
in the crowd, including “gentlemen and old-timers,” to shake it.
All of Rooney’s songs are fun to dance to, even if you are completely surrounded
by teenage girls. There were few boys in attendance. At one point during the
concert one girl screamed out at Carmine “you are beautiful” — a
moment straight out of —“Seventeen” magazine. Rooney put on
a fun-filled show.
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