Double Door

On paper it seemed like an interesting mix, three seasoned rock vets and one young hotshot, fresh from a decade selling platinum records with his musical brothers.  Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Tinted Windows.  When I first heard of the band, I was aware of the musical pedigrees of James Iha, Adam Schlesinger and Bun E. Carlos, it was that Taylor Hanson kid that had me stumped.  Surely it couldn’t be that kid from the MMM Bop song right?  It sure is, he’s all grown up now and looks and sounds great.  I liked their first single “Kind Of a Girl” so much; I did an XRT Hear First piece on them.  I bought the record a few weeks ago, loved it and got to see them live for the first time at Double Door last week.

The sold out Double Door audience was comprised of two distinct factions: hipster guys aged 25-60 and women aged 22-35 who had likely seen a Hanson concert or two back in the day.  Wanna guess which group went nuts when they killed the house lights and PA.? You’d have thought Duran Duran circa 1984 hit the stage the screams were so loud.  And I’m guessing they weren’t for the other three, all due respect.  The kid’s got it though. Taylor Hanson has the moves, the voice and made all the right on-stage banter about Chicago: deep dish pizza, nice people, and he gave props to the two Illinois natives: Bun E. Carlos and James Iha.

Tinted Windows delivered a taut 50-minute set (featuring every song from their debut) of arena-ready, power pop hooks.  There’s just a hint of each member’s ‘other’ bands in the album’s sound and live performance. As a nod to the first wave of 70’s power pop, they closed the encore with a cover of the Buzzcock’s “I Don’t Mind”  I’m not sure if these guys are in it for the long haul or if this is a lark, but try not to miss them next time they’re here.