Hanson

FIONA SHEPHERD


HANSON ***
CARLING ACADEMY, GLASGOW

THE dilemma for any boy-band which seeks to grow up is how to reconcile the teenybop following which has kept them commercially afloat with their aspirations to be taken seriously as mature artists.

The American family trio Hanson were never a boy-band in the accepted sense of a pretty-boy karaoke machine. Their greatest success to date came in 1997 with one massive hit. The irresistibly bubblegum Mmmbop provided guilty pleasure for music fans beyond the teen pop demographic, but it was inevitably the girls who bought in to the fresh-faced fraternal package with alacrity.

Eight years on, puberty has been kind to brothers Isaac, Taylor and Zac, even if their commercial track record hasn’t been. Now in their early twenties, they look like comfortable college rock pros up on the stage and, judging by the communal shrieking in the crowd, they have successfully pulled off the trick of still pleasing their fans while pleasing themselves.

First impressions on their post-pubescent direction were that they had unexpectedly, though not unpleasantly, evolved into an approximation of Peter Gabriel-era Genesis - without the floral costumes and greasepaint - but as they proceeded through a set which encompassed country pop, funky rock, a lighter-waving ballad from Zac, a sensitive singer/songwriter acoustic strum from Isaac and a reasonable cover of Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine, those goalposts kept shifting.

Their comeback single, Penny & Me, is as conventional a slice of American teen rock as any which has soundtracked a prom night movie scene. But, although their sound is trad and tested, there is a degree of shrewd timing about their return, as the popularity of guitar-driven acts such as Busted and McFly has considerably widened perceptions of what can be devoured by the lucrative teenage girl market.

Happily, the evergreen Mmmbop remained in the set, along with the effervescent Where’s The Love?. New track Lost Without Each Other proved they were still adept at producing bubblegum pop but, bizarrely, they ended with an engaging stab at ballsy rock’n’roll. If Hanson were to get off the middle of the road and operate at those extremes, their renaissance would be all the more welcome.