2008 Woodie Awards
Maroon 5 makes it 'harder to breathe'
Issue date: 5/7/05 Section: Tempo
- Page 1 of 1
On April 19, thousands of ladies from the Chicagoland region had their dreams come true, when Maroon 5 played at the UIC Pavilion. Full-grown mature women were reduced to giggling schoolgirls when the band started playing.
Maroon 5 have only been a band for about four years. Four of the members, singer/guitarist Adam Levine, guitarist Jesse Carmichael, bass player Mickey Madden, and drummer Ryan Dusick, were originally in the band Kara's Flowers. They started the project straight out of high school and though they initially gained a great deal of attention from record labels, after disppointing sales they were soon released from their contract. Dusick and Madden then began attedning UCLA and Carmichel and Levine metriculated at the State University of New York.
Both pairs kept up their avid interest in music and began exploring new facets. At his school in New York, Levine was exposed to music he had not paid much attention to previously. He gained a new found love for R&B, and became very inspired to put his own spin on it, this with the discovery of guitarist James Valentine, the 'Kara's' crew reunited and Maroon 5 were born.
The band has been on tour for about two and a half years and they still do not seem to get tired of making the ladies scream. The screams and whistles were positively deafening.
The sold-out crowd comprised mostly of women (surprise, surprise) were in a complete frenzy the entire 90 minutes the band played, calming down briefly only to sing along frantically with frontman Adam Levine.
Along with the sea of groupies, there was also a surprising amount of elderly couples in attendence. On a side note because of how excited and worked up the women in the crowd got, I am very sure that all of the men that were dragged to the concert by their girlfriends and wives were heavily rewarded.
Mr. Levine connected with the crowd, on many different levels, effortlessly. He explained the genesis of the songs on their multi-platnium album was his love for women, which sent the already over-excited female population into a tizzy. He gave an absolutely exhausting performance, singing his teeny little heart out, dancing, running around stage, and still managing to find the energy to lay out guitar licks like nobody's business. Despite the quantity of time and effort Levine used running around, it did not take away from his perfomance in the least.
The ease at which the band played, was itself, something to marvel at. Performing on stage seemed to be so natural to them, they look more at home on stage than off. Frontman Adam seemd to get an extraordinary amount of pleasure out of making the crowd sing his songs to him. He instructed the audience to sing the enitre first stanza of the song "This Love" and then would periodically stop singing and just let the crowd continue.
The quintet performed some new material which was more than well received. The screams and the pandamonium got so out of control, it would not have been a surprise if the stadium would have imploded. Along with the very welcome new songs they also performed the Police classic "Message in a Bottle."
All in all, it was an absolutely amazing performance, despite the deafness that soon followed after leaving the pavilion.
Maroon 5 have only been a band for about four years. Four of the members, singer/guitarist Adam Levine, guitarist Jesse Carmichael, bass player Mickey Madden, and drummer Ryan Dusick, were originally in the band Kara's Flowers. They started the project straight out of high school and though they initially gained a great deal of attention from record labels, after disppointing sales they were soon released from their contract. Dusick and Madden then began attedning UCLA and Carmichel and Levine metriculated at the State University of New York.
Both pairs kept up their avid interest in music and began exploring new facets. At his school in New York, Levine was exposed to music he had not paid much attention to previously. He gained a new found love for R&B, and became very inspired to put his own spin on it, this with the discovery of guitarist James Valentine, the 'Kara's' crew reunited and Maroon 5 were born.
The band has been on tour for about two and a half years and they still do not seem to get tired of making the ladies scream. The screams and whistles were positively deafening.
The sold-out crowd comprised mostly of women (surprise, surprise) were in a complete frenzy the entire 90 minutes the band played, calming down briefly only to sing along frantically with frontman Adam Levine.
Along with the sea of groupies, there was also a surprising amount of elderly couples in attendence. On a side note because of how excited and worked up the women in the crowd got, I am very sure that all of the men that were dragged to the concert by their girlfriends and wives were heavily rewarded.
Mr. Levine connected with the crowd, on many different levels, effortlessly. He explained the genesis of the songs on their multi-platnium album was his love for women, which sent the already over-excited female population into a tizzy. He gave an absolutely exhausting performance, singing his teeny little heart out, dancing, running around stage, and still managing to find the energy to lay out guitar licks like nobody's business. Despite the quantity of time and effort Levine used running around, it did not take away from his perfomance in the least.
The ease at which the band played, was itself, something to marvel at. Performing on stage seemed to be so natural to them, they look more at home on stage than off. Frontman Adam seemd to get an extraordinary amount of pleasure out of making the crowd sing his songs to him. He instructed the audience to sing the enitre first stanza of the song "This Love" and then would periodically stop singing and just let the crowd continue.
The quintet performed some new material which was more than well received. The screams and the pandamonium got so out of control, it would not have been a surprise if the stadium would have imploded. Along with the very welcome new songs they also performed the Police classic "Message in a Bottle."
All in all, it was an absolutely amazing performance, despite the deafness that soon followed after leaving the pavilion.
