Review: Everclear Celebrates 30 Years of Seminal Album in Plano

It might not have seemed so at first glance, but there could hardly have been a better setting for watching Everclear circa 2025 than the Box Garden at Legacy Hall.

An Astroturfed faux backyard, tucked inside an outdoor shopping mall, nestling against a food hall, with an abundance of picnic tables and a steady supply of high-proof seltzers — the comforts of middle age lightly kissed with a hint of youthful rebellion.

After all, gazing out at the sold-out sea of faces — littered with one-time punks and ragged rockers now toting kids and clad in polite polos, an occasional, fleeting glimpse of tattoos here and there — was to behold a generation of fans gathered, in the gentrified comfort of the suburbs, putting life on pause for a few hours to revel in the raucousness of younger, more impulsive years.

What might have once ended in a 3 a.m. visit to Waffle House and picking your way across a parking lot strewn with broken glass and a stray needle or two now wrapped up comfortably at 10 p.m. sharp. The most transgressive element of Thursday’s performance was Everclear frontman Art Alexakis repeatedly exhorting the all-ages crowd: “Let me get a fuck yeah!”

The quartet — Alexakis, bassist Freddy Herrera, drummer Brian Nolan and guitarist Dave French; of those, only Alexakis is an original, founding member — was on hand in Plano to play through Everclear’s superb, raw-nerved Sparkle and Fade, which turns 30 this year. (Thursday’s showcase also marked Everclear’s return to a venue it last played two years ago; the group has made an annual pilgrimage to North Texas every year since 2021.)

Thursday additionally featured muscular, brief sets from opening acts Sponge — whose alt-rock staples “Molly (16 Candles Down the Drain)” and “Plowed” have aged like fine wine — and Local H, a duo best known for the aggro ‘90s hit “Bound for the Floor,” but whose set Thursday unfolded like some of dazzlingly weird, free jazz-blues experiment, spiked with Replacements and Stooges covers.

The Oregon-formed Everclear’s sophomore album Sparkle and Fade was also its big break, turning songs of agony, addiction and lust into radio-dominating smash hits (“Santa Monica,” “You Make Me Feel Like a Whore,” “Heroin Girl”).

The capacity crowd was only too happy to shout along as the band worked through the songs, broken up by banter from Herrera and Alexakis, the latter of whom spent much of the show doling out positive affirmations to those gathered: “Those kids — put earmuffs on ‘em,” he said at one point, as the profanity escalated. “If this is the worst thing that happens to ‘em, you win.”

While Alexakis’s spirit was more than willing, his flesh was less cooperative. The 63-year-old singer-songwriter’s voice has diminished greatly since the 1990s, in part because of a diagnosis, a decade ago, of multiple sclerosis, which he continues to valiantly battle against.

Once vibrating with a wiry, eager energy, Alexakis now sings in a weary bark, occasionally reaching moments of visceral clarity — he seemed to find another gear in Fade’s closing stretch of “Pale Green Stars,” “Chemical Smile” and “My Sexual Life” — but relying heavily on his bandmates to provide depth and harmonies.

Everclear hasn’t dropped new music in a decade, but Thursday’s set list ventured no further back than the now-25-year-old Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile, and its big hit “Wonderful,” which Alexakis — in what he said was a shift from his usual approach — dedicated to “the young people checking out the ‘90s alternative rock and roll.”

“Give yourselves a big hand for fucking being here!” he shouted.

It was, simultaneously, cringe and endearing — as fitting a sensation as you could reasonably expect given the circumstances. Youth evaporates long before most are ready to cede its pleasures, but with enough volume, determination and High Noon, you can almost feel like a kid again on any given evening.

See more photos from Thursday’s show: