Maroon 5 keeps the hits coming at Fiserv Forum
Over the last decade, no pop-rock group has been more adept at changing with the times than Maroon 5.
Sunday in Milwaukee’s new arena, Fiserv Forum, Adam Levine and company also proved they could change on a dime.
From the modern bedroom-pop chill of last year’s “What Lovers Do” — the band’s 17th top 20 single since 2002 — Maroon 5 moved into the musically soaring, lyrically cynical “Payphone” before slipping into the earlyaughts, fizzy-rock grooves of “This Love,” where Levine traded his croon for a surprisingly rugged guitar solo.
When the last note of that song hit, the band, without missing a beat, slid into a reggae shuffle at the start of “Misery” — then the second that song ended, Matt Flynn tore into a funky drummer break ahead of the sunny light jazz-kissed “Sunday Morning.”
From there Levine let out a howl to start off “Animals,” which ended with Levine and James Valentine’s bombastic, Trans-Siberian Orchestrastyle guitar rock showboating.
For anyone who believes Maroon 5 is little more than a living algorithm that absorbs and uses modern trends for streaming ubiquity, Sunday’s show indicated the band still has soul live and is willing to tweak the formula.
Keyboardist PJ Morton slipped in some gospel keys on “Maps,” while Valentine put a little post-grunge guitar swagger into “Moves Like Jagger,” which ended with Valentine and Levine busting out bluesy, arena-rock riffs on a V-shaped runway.
And Levine’s falsetto — so light and smooth on those ultra-polished recordings — was more textured and radiant live.
To satisfy current radio tastes, Levine basically is forced to sing a recent hit like “Don’t Wanna Know” with some icy detachment. But Sunday, he brought more urgency to the vocals, as he did to a heated rendition of “Harder to Breathe.”
Levine also was a better showman than during his performance at Maroon 5’s BMO Harris Bradley Center show in early 2017; he performed on the runway for much of the night Sunday.
But the true star was the set list. Even if you don’t like Maroon 5, chances are you know at least some of the 20 choruses that were sung Sunday. The band (and its rotating collaborators) have a knack for writing instantly memorable tunes, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a pop show where you’d hear 10 high-energy hit songs across the opening 45 minutes without even a five-second pause. That’s what Maroon 5 offered Sunday, followed by another hour littered with past and present radio staples.
Ahead of a charming acoustic version of “She Will Be Loved” with Valentine, Levine, who’d been quiet between songs most of the evening, started chatting at length.
“When I was a kid starting out, we all said, ‘Yeah, yeah, we are not going to be doing this (expletive) when we’re 40,’ “Levine said. “Delightfully, that theory was misproven.”
Following the night’s finale, an ultra-sweet “Sugar,” Levine threw off his shirt to show off his fab, middle-aged bod as he sprinted around the runway. It literally was a victory lap, although the show that preceded it suggested Maroon 5 isn’t planning to slow down anytime soon.
Sunday was Julia Michaels’ first time in Milwaukee, but as a songwriter, she has quite a pop pedigree. An acoustic medley late into her 30-minute set touched on that catalog: Selena Gomez’s “Bad Liar,” Hailee Steinfeld’s “Love Myself ” and Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” to name a few.
But despite the stickiness of those hooks, the cool rasp of Michaels’ voice and her bouncy stage presence, even those smash songs didn’t electrify the crowd. It’s a testament to how important an artist’s “it” factor is to a hit — something Michaels eventually brought to the stage to the wilted whimsy of her own “Issues.”