Howie Day was tired.
He left Rhode Island Sunday night at 11:30, drove until 8 a.m. where he stopped in DuBois, Pa., for a four-hour nap before finishing the drive to East Lansing.
Despite the sleep deprivation and a late night behind the wheel, Day rocked a sold-out crowd of more than 450 at the Union Ballroom on Monday night. And he did it without showing the wear and tear of a touring schedule that has him on the road more than 300 days a year.
“Everything was on,” Day said. “Great crowd, great sound, we didn’t even sound check. It was one of the best shows of the tour.”
And he’s not done yet. Within the next five days he’ll go from Massachusetts to New York and then to Colorado Springs, Colo., before heading back to his native Maine for the holidays.
Day, who performed for more than an hour, played much of the material off his latest release “Australia” and an incredible cover of Radiohead’s “Karma Police” right down to the synthesizer ending and British accent. He also unveiled his cover of the Beatles’ song “Help!,” which will be on the soundtrack of the upcoming Sean Penn film “I am Sam.” That album comes out in January.
“Ben Harper, Ben Folds, the Wallflowers, they’re all going to be on it doing Beatles covers, so that’s something I’m really looking forward to,” Day said.
He’s also picking up two dates touring with Sting because the former Police frontman’s previous opener, Pete Yorn, dropped off the tour. Playing with a rock legend such as Sting and sharing a soundtrack with such heavy hitters might be something your average 20-year-old from Bangor, Maine, might be excited about.
But Day has proven before that he is not your ordinary 20-year-old from New England.
“I’m going to be performing in front of three times my previous record for a show,” Day said nervously noshing on some cheese crackers. “I don’t know what I’m going to play.
“It might suck.”
One of the things that sets Day’s performances off from his contemporary musicians is his onstage live sampling where Day will play something on the guitar, record it, then play it over and over while singing and playing different chords over it. Day stands on the stage alone, but it sounds like he has a full band behind him.
“It started when I saw Joseph Arthur doing it,” Day said. “I was like, ‘whoa, that’s incredible,’ so I tried it. It started off with me kind of mocking him, but eventually it turned into being my thing on stage.”
John Torkelson, a sophomore at Midland High School, made the hour and a half drive to East Lansing to see the show and brought along his MiniDisc recorder to bootleg Day’s performance.
“I have some of his live shows at home and this is the best I’ve heard him live,” Torkelson said. “It was just an awesome performance. I haven’t seen anything like him.”
Drew Nelson, a Grand Rapids songwriter, opened the show and drew a very positive reaction from the crowd with his folkish pop style of music. And Max Gosling, director of Pop Entertainment, which put on the show, said picking Nelson was no coincidence.
“He’s played with Shawn Mullins and Edwin McCain and on national tours all the way up to Alaska,” he said. “So I thought he’d be a good choice, someone the Howie Day crowd would embrace.”
