Live Review: Train

Live Review: Train

Train at the Fillmore: Aidin Vaziri | On Thursday, the former Bay Area band played the first of four not-quite-sold-out shows at the Fillmore, beginning a North American tour that stretches over the next two months. "Thank you for welcoming us back home," front man Pat Monahan humbly announced near the beginning of the set. And you could tell he meant it after everything he's been through in the past few years: an emotionally draining divorce, the unexpected suicide of his best friend and a major shakeup in Train's lineup. Of course, if you didn't know about all that, you could hardly be faulted for not noticing that this was meant to be a cathartic moment. That's because Monahan makes for a curious front man. Wearing what appeared to be women's jeans and a paint-splattered shirt, he smiled broadly and pirouetted around the stage, even when he was digging into the depths of his soul. During the ballad "Mississippi," he brought up a girl from the audience to serenade, but when she started dancing a little too seductively, he traded her in for one who had her hormones more suitably in check. And he tiptoed around his recent troubles with vague declarations such as, "And so she left, thank God," acting out the words in some sort of weird mime routine.