Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 7-3

123456 TRIBUNE 3 FRIDAY ON stage theater music This sound had in my head for years is pouring over me. Tim DeLaughter Tour of an occasional series of journal entries from artists coming to the Chicago area. Artist: Long Island emo-rockers Taking Back Sunday In town: Sunday at Metro you are probably aware, this was our first tour in a bus. Now, I know if you realize this, but only a little more than a year ago we were doing our tours in Ford Windstar minivan. So when I talk about the bus not bragging, just me being so excited and in awe that I help talking about it.

highlight of the tour I would say without a doubt was our show with Jimmy Eat World. Adam and me watched their entire sound check and felt like some silly fans who had been let backstage. Adam also met Eat World Jim Adkins and talked to him for a while and felt again kind of like a fan who snuck backstage, but he said Jim was very nice and very polite. We went on right before them and for the first time in a while I think all of us were kind of nervous. From what everyone told us, it all went well, but who knows.

that we got to go to Canada for the first time and that was pretty cool. In Canada their money has pictures of hockey players on it and all different bright colors. Also, as Mark Shaun and I found out at the bar later, you can use American money, but really hard to figure out how much actually giving them in Canadian, especially when it comes to tipping. next and final date of the tour was in Seattle. Seattle is a really cool city and we got to walk around it a bit and then Adam, Mark and myself all went with our manager Jillian to the Experience Music Project, which is a kind of rock and roll museum that they have there.

I could go on and on but sure a point where all this becomes kind of self indulgent and Entry by John Nolan. Compiled by Andy Argyrakis. Taking Back Sunday performs 1:15 p.m. Sunday at Metro, 3730 Clark St. Call 773-549-4140.

Taking Back Sunday, touring and loving it. OUT CHECKIT lads take in road life AUSTIN, Spree singer Tim DeLaughter is out of his white-robed stage uniform, but still quite a sight: Shocking- pink shirt, flaming-red pants and a tiny button on his lapel bearing the image of none other than his booking agent. helping us out, DeLaughter says as he lounges outside the Austin Music Hall, hours before leading his 24-member band onto the stage for a typically over-the-top performance at the South by Southwest Music Conference: choral- symphonic rock roll via and the Flaming Lips. The booking agent has been getting a workout lately. When the band performed outside of their hometown of Dallas for the first time at last South by Southwest, the Spree wowed critics and industry tastemakers.

Two weeks later they were getting a call from David Bowie inviting them to play his Meltdown Festival in London. never played outside Texas, some of us had never even been on a plane De- Laughter says, there we are playing the Royal Festival Hall. It went nuts from Now on their way to Chicago, where they begin their first North American tour Thursday at the Empty Bottle and April 11at Metro. It should be quite a spectacle: two dozen Texans jumping around in white robes, rocking out on trombone, harp and other orchestral instruments while singing multi-part songs about transcending tragedy. cult-like possibilities were quite hilarious to the media in the UK when we first went over DeLaughter says.

we made it through that Paul Simon was so smitten he sought out De- Laughter after the Spree played New York last year. told me he knew something like us was gonna come along one day, he just know the singer says. was wondering if anyone was going to come to our shows, and Paul Simon does. It was The Spree have become a sensation in Europe, and returned to this South By Southwest as conquering heroes. But the upcoming 20-city American tour will leave them $40,000 in debt because of the huge expense of transporting a 24-member band cross-country.

DeLaughter, 37, have it any other way. For him, forming the Polyphonic Spree was a personal necessity, financial consequences be damned. His first major band, Tripping Daisy, had recorded a handful of acid-pop albums, only to implode in 1999 when guitarist Wes Berggren died of a drug overdose. thought that was it for me ever playing music DeLaughter says. was in a state of shock.

I basically stayed at home, and my wife and I made babies. We had three kids. That totally changed my life, and as time went on I started to see things musically again. been thinking about doing something like Polyphonic Spree since the earliest days of Tripping Daisy, but I figured be an old man by the time I got around to doing it. I even be in the band, I just wanted to put it together and hear It was a sound DeLaughter has been pursuing since childhood, when he heard the exultant pop of bands like the Fifth Dimension and the Association.

He was the only child of divorced parents, and musical Disney storybooks and sunny Top-40 songs helped pull him through. find comfort in that music, and that it comes out in this band is no he says. Though the music leaves spectators grinning and dancing, it is grounded not in sugary sentiment, but heartache. The songs on the self-released debut album, Beginning Stages Of (Good Records), are marinated in pain, which makes the buoyant choruses all the more potent. find the DeLaughter sings at the outset, as if talking to himself in the aftermath of death.

audience is watching us he says. are we celebrating? There are people in this band, classically trained musicians, coming from a world that is really stuffy, and always wanted a chance to rock out. For me, the happiness that comes from realizing a dream. Sonically, overwhelmed. This sound had in my head for years is pouring over me.

was very protective of things when I started making music. And not even sure what I was protecting. My coolness, maybe? But older, and lost that fear. I was more jaded back then. like taken a bath, and now DeLaughter cracks up, but all kidding about those robes aside, he can get evangelical when talking about the Spree.

need this band. I wanted the subtleties of a feather with the vivaciousness of a loud thunder clap. I wanted more than just the sound of my voice, I wanted a lot of voices so those melodies could glide. And if it took 24 people in white robes to make that happen, well what I had to Hear Greg Kot at 10 p.m. every Tuesday on Sound Opinions, on WXRT-FM 93.1.

Tim DeLaughter, frontman of the Polyphonic Spree, gets downright evangelical about his berobed, hard-rocking, 24-member ensemble. PLAY ON A blissful, musical Spree Polyphonic Spree makes a joyful, upbeat noise from basic rock n'roll Greg Kot Tribune rock critic It should be quite a spectacle: two dozen Texans jumping around in white robes, rocking out. Polyphonic Spree When 10:30 p.m. Thursday; 7 p.m. April 11 Where (Thursday) Empty Bottle, 1035 N.

Western (April 11) Metro, 3730 N. Clark St. Price $12 (Empty Bottle); 773-276-3600; $12.50 (Metro); 773-549-0203 When the $22 million Metropolis Performing Arts Centre opened its doors in 2000 in downtown Arlington Heights, there was lots of talk about appealing to urban exiles hungry for urbane entertainment. New York cabaret singers were booked by a venue that was set up from the start as a for- profit entity. And an arrangement was made with the Apple Tree Theatre of Highland Park that would bring sophisticated drama to the Northwest suburbs.

But three years on, pretty clear that the people at Metropolis initially misjudged what would sell in Arlington Heights. The arrangement with Apple Tree is no of its productions did not sell well at Metropolis. The for- profit status has been replaced by a not-for- profit organization replete with the standard board of directors. And the nature of shows has taken a 180-degree turn. Last fall, Metropolis joined with the Bog Theatre of Des Plaines in presenting and Old This weekend, Metropolis opens a revival of Kill A In June, the theater will present a co-production of also with the Bog Theatre.

And each Christmas for the foreseeable future, the mainstage will be occupied by an annual version of Charles Christmas nothing wrong with doing the classics, of course. Indeed, the Equity-affiliated production of will be staged by the storied Chicago director Sheldon Patinkin and will feature a cast of 30, with 10 live musicians. And if anyone was wondering whether the Chicago area needed another production of Christmas some 6,000 voted with their attendance at Metropolis these past holidays. But this new repertoire hardly is urban chic. now trying to create a mix of says Tim Rater, who recently became the executive director of Metropolis, replacing Alan Salzenstein.

made all sorts of changes. And we know that we have to cater to what people want to Metropolis was an unusual place from the start, because it was conceived as part of a massive re-development of downtown Arlington Heights, spearheaded by property developer Mark Anderson. Anderson, who was working on a slew of new residences, restaurants and a jazz club in the area, sunk a great deal of his own money into Metropolis, which he conceived as an attractive cultural resource for the new downtown residents. All, he thought, should be able to pay their own way. Anderson initially ran he still is the president of the new board of directors.

He says that his neo-urban suburban the arts role a great success. But he now admits that his expertise was outside the arts. And he says looking to become less directly involved in the future. come from the theater Anderson says. now know that we should have been non-profit from the start.

That way, we would have attracted a lot more community support, especially in terms of funding and donations. The initial perception was that I would do it Anderson went on to say that he feels he closely identified with the and that it would be better for him to play a diminished role. In many ways, the new set-up at Metropolis makes a lot more sense. There may be lots of hip singles in the condos right around the theater, but the Northwest suburbs also contain a lot of families looking for affordable programming with broad generational appeal. a paucity of professional theater in these suburbs.

And thanks to the new partnership with Bog, a local theater company that lost its home in Des Plaines in 2000, Metropolis may well finally have identified a viable niche. As well as teaming up with Bog, Metropolis also is producing its own as Kill a is giving Arlington Heights its own resident, professional troupe. Those shows are non-union, but Rater says he hopes to affiliate with Equity within a year or so. The one constant component to date in otherwise fluid history has been Second City. The Chicago-based comedy troupe has found an audience for an annual holiday show, as well as a summer engagement by its touring company very popular with local teenagers.

Second City producer Kelly Leonard says planning on using Metropolis as a try-out venue for his fledgling Second City Theatricals touring operation. done very well Leonard says. A non-profit venue with mainstream programming and a couple of seasonal anchors? That sounds like the right ticket for downtown Arlington Heights. Chris Jones Tribune arts reporter pretty clear that the people at Metropolis initially misjudged what would sell in Arlington Heights. BACKSTAGE Understanding its town, Metropolis finally at home Kill a first self- produced show, is more classic than the work the center first set out to present.

Kill a When: Through May 4 Where: Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, 111W. Campbell Arlington Heights Price: $34; 847-577-2121.