As a younger lad enjoying music in the 90s, I can’t say I was all that fond of Blues Traveler. Never owned an album of theirs but knew the songs from radio and MTV (and the movie “Kingpin”). But as the years went on, I began to really appreciate music overall, I knew John Popper was a hell of a singer and harmonica player even if I wasn’t driving around listening to them. Seeing them live though? Ok, sure.
So July 18, 2025 my buddy Del and I headed to Wallingford, CT to check out the show. The Spin Doctors opened and I know as many songs by them (3) as I do Blues Traveler. They were ok and i immediately noticed that they had a jam band vibe to them. I didn’t know the first three songs at all, but it’s fine and they had some good harmonies. The singer (Chris Barron) was kinda lame on stage, doing weird David Lee Roth style kicks and stretching his leg above his head a bunch of times, but at least he still sounds good. They did have the bass player and keyboard player from Blues Traveler join them for a song so that was cool too. The did play their hits of course, Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong (apparently about his stepmother), Jimmy Olsen’s Blues, and Two Princes. Overall, not too bad. Another band I was never super into, but it’s good they’re still doing their thing.
Gin Blossoms were the 2nd band to play and they have way more hits/radio songs than the other two bands if you ask me. However, they played quite a few songs I wasn’t familiar with so I guess they don’t have as many as I thought. Opening with Follow You Down was cool though. Come out with a hit! They had 5 or 6 songs I wasn’t familiar with throughout the night, but they were still good tunes. They had the Spin Doctors singer join for a song and they played several hits including Until I Fall Away, Found Out About You, Allison Road, Hey Jealousy, and Until I Hear It From You. They’re a solid band and I enjoyed them. The vocals were a bit drowned out at times which is always annoying. Singer Robin Wilson was engaged with the crowd and it was cool to see him up there singing while grabbing items from the crowd, signing them and handing back. Haven’t seen that too often. Maybe a signature here or there but he was a signing machine for a bit.M. I saw them many years back and they were great then. Not as great tonight in my opinion but still really good.
Blue Traveler was the headliner. They opened with what I think was Stand and then played their biggest hit, Run Around, as their second song. So with that out of the way, people started to slowly trickle out. Hm.
Blues Traveler was great though. John Popper can play harmonica like no one’s business and he has a hell of a voice. The band is very solid and the guitar player was pretty impressive. These dudes also the jam band vibe. As I looked into it afterwards, I learned that these dudes and Spin Doctors played with Phish at the first H.O.R.D.E. (Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere) festival in 1992. Jam band status achieved?
Being a jam band is great when Popper gets frustrated with his equipment and leaves the stage for several minutes which is what happened after what appeared to be stage fan not working. The band must be used to it by now and just rocked out until his return.
After Run Around, they covered Charlie Daniels’ The Devil Went Down to Georgia and the harmonica replaced the fiddle. They did a verse or two, jammed for a good ten minutes, then brought it back to finish the song. Very cool.
Somewhere around here was another hit, But Anyway. They then brought Chris Barron out to sing on Champipple (a Sanford & Son reference), making him the only dude who sang during every set. They went into a cover of War Pigs (Black Sabbath) after this, without Popper. Guitars replaced Ozzy so it was a solid instrumental.
Popper came back out and time for more jamming. Lots of guitar, drums, bass, and nonstop harmonica “shreds.” Can one “shred” on harmonica like a guitar? I don’t know the term. Let’s go with shred.
By the time they got to the drum solo portion of the show, I started to notice the place was getting a little less crowded. In fact our whole row was empty to the left of us. Not sure why as the band was great. Maybe it was a Gin Blossoms crowd, and with Run Around at the beginning people didn’t feel the need to stay. Perhaps it was the sober folks leaving to avoid being on the road with the all the drinkers who had to get home somehow. It worked out for us because we slid over which improved our view. You see, the first half of the night was fine until Captain Doucheman, standing at 7 feet tall, arrived with his entourage and sat 2 rows ahead of us…but chose to stand and horribly dance every time they recognized a song. Each row was higher than the next with their elevated theatre seating but I still couldn’t see over or around him. He also had to get up 20 times to get more drinks. Tallest dude in the place, no one in front of him. Stands. Sigh.
Anyway, they played their last hit, Hook, and we started to head out to avoid the drunks ourselves like the inebriated Captain Doucheman (I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but he ruined the hits portion of Gin Blossoms for us and the people in front of us, so he earned a nickname). They hadn’t even finished Hook yet and people started pouring out (all the sobers?). I believe a cover of Hot for Teacher closed the show. But I can’t confirm for sure.
They were a great band live and I was pretty pleased. I swear there was one song where he was blowing on that harmonica like crazy but I heard no harmonica. Seemed like from their stage/ear monitors all was well, but it wasn’t audible to the crowd. It was fixed toward the end of the song and good after that the rest of the night.
The morale of my story…if you have a chance to see a band and don’t mind the songs you’ve heard, go check them out. Maybe they’ll surprise you live, especially if they have some kind of uniqueness to their style. Blues Traveler is pretty unique to have hit songs with a harmonica as their main instrument. He can play some pretty wild stuff and it’s pretty impressive.
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