Say It Isn't So: Don't You Dare Miss Out On The Hall And Oates / Tears For Fears Tour Currently Underway!

The Hall and Oates tour, with openers Tears For Fears, hit Washington, D.C.'s Verizon Center last night and I had such a good time that I have to tell you: Please catch this show when it comes to your town sometime after the July 4th holidays. The rest of the tour dates can be found here, on the official Hall and Oates website.

Opening with a tight, New Wave-y run at "Family Man", Daryl Hall and John Oates took the stage right on the 9 o'clock dot to begin a generous, hit-filled 90-minute set. The band behind them was firing on all cylinders as the duo wrapped their still-impressive pipes around this classic number. A supple "Maneater" followed and then a spry "Out of Touch" showed up sounding nearly as good as it did when I was a senior in high school. The next cut was perhaps my fave Hall of Oates number: "Say It Isn't So" from the band's first best of back in 1983. The track sounded even better and more forward-thinking now than it had back in 1983. What was then simply a bonus, "new" cut on that compilation, is now a standard for this act and I can see why as the audience was singing along like I was.

Later, a superb, note-perfect rendition of "One on One" brought out the cell-phones to light up the Verizon Center in the way that lighters would have a few decades ago. The ease with which this duo recaptured the sleek appeal of this number was something that was truly impressive, the band helping out immensely on this keyboard-sample-heavy jam. A few other oldies showed up -- "She's Gone", obscure album cut "Is It A Star" -- before Daryl Hall took to the grand piano to lead a refined "Sara Smile" that sounded as heartfelt and sublime as it did back in the early Seventies blasting out of an AM radio somewhere.

By the time that the band finished up with an encore of "Rich Girl", "Kiss On Your List", and a rousing "You Make My Dreams (Come True)", you could understand the enthusiasm that the nearly-full venue was showing these guys. These numbers soundtracked my childhood, my teen years, and my best moments later. Truly an institution, Hall and Oates deserve a lot of credit for bridging the worlds of New Wave, AM Gold, and white-boy soul with such remarkable skill and ease.

Openers Tears For Fears delivered a set loaded with their hits ("Everybody Wants To Rule The World", "Head Over Heels", etc.), as well as at least one from another band ("Creep" by Radiohead). Their light show was pretty good too, as you can see by those 2 pics below.

More details on this tour are available via the official Hall and Oates website here.

[Photos: Me and my wife]