Simon Dawes
Words: Michael Rabinowitz
Photos: Michael Rabinowitz

Appeared:
August 30, 2007
Ford Amphitheatre, Tampa

First, the name: Simon Dawes.  It’s a band not a person.  Well, that’s only half true.  Simon Dawes is a real person who was part of the band, briefly.  “We just liked the name but the dude couldn’t play and he wasn’t that into it,” lead singer Taylor Goldsmith explains.  Lead guitarist, Blake Mills, adds this nugget, “Plus, his girlfriend was a real bitch so that was an obstacle.” 

Easily overcoming the dreaded “bitch obstacle,” Simon Dawes, dropped its sunny California psych-pop for a passionate Springsteen garage sound in the opening slot for Incubus and The Bravery.  “Execution Song” and “The Awful Things” carry a rough and tumble bar band quality that questions the credibility of the faces that are producing it.  (I doubt bass player, Wylie Gerber, has had to shave any facial hair besides his eyebrows.)  Perhaps the sound was pushed to match the cavernous Ford Amphitheater band shell with all its ridiculous rock circus trappings?  Then again, I don’t know why the “major-indie” labels push these young acts onto larger headlining tours.  True, the crowds are bigger than a club tour but at what expense?  Simon Dawes looked overcrowded on preset stage with equipment belonging to the headliners.  If you happen to be sitting in the lawn, the boys from Berkeley looked more like stagehands than performers.  Up close and personal is where Simon Dawes captures you.  Unfortunately, most fans missed that opportunity.

Contrary to popular misconception, band members do not fall into two-dimensional cutouts.  Each different band has a different dynamic.  But, Simon Dawes comes awfully close to fulfilling the clichéd expectations of an up and coming American rock band as they work way up the fame game of shoots and ladders.  Taylor Goldsmith, the good-looking political ingratiating lead singer with Blake Mills as the scruffy, loose cannon guitarist.  When the question of preferring small clubs to huge amphitheater venues comes up, Goldsmith says the right things (“Giant opportunity, More exposure”) it is Mills who becomes the reporter’s dream.  “Personally I prefer smaller venues.  You end up playing to the band more than the crowd.  In these venues you can only see the first four rows anyways and everyone else is a big Lollapalooza blur.  You are playing to people who are probably hearing the worst sound in the entire venue.  It seems almost an unnatural event to open with all these people here with music coming out of these big speakers.  We just . . . don’t look as subtle.” 

But, when Simon Dawes takes the stage, this intimacy is all that matter.  Not the stage, not the tour, not the price of beer, not the name recognition.  Well, maybe a little name recognition. “The name is Simon Dawes,” Goldsmith prompts the audience of pre-teen Incubus fans as they saunter into the thousands of empty Amphitheater seats.  “Its important you know that because you probably don’t know who we are.”  Except if you happen to be the real Simon Dawes. 

(Just don’t tell Simon’s girlfriend.)