Don’t be fooled by the childhood fantasies. When Fountains of Wayne takes the stage, it’s time to grow up.

LeMoyne College sponsored last night’s show at the Landmark Theatre, but college students were few and far between. In their place loomed the dark chasm between bubble gum-twisting middle-schoolers and the parents that drove them to the show.

Gone were the rock concert staples: the plumes of pot smoke, the spiked soft drinks and crushed cans of smuggled beer. For the first two hours of the show, everyone stayed seated except for two patches of 20-somethings. The concert seemed like a suburban family outing – pay no attention to the grungy rock of the opening acts – and for a while, Fountains of Wayne played along.

The band opened with a string of clean, mellow rock under blue and yellow lights, pop songs that knew their place but hinted at much more. And rightfully so – Fountains frontman Adam Schlesinger is something of a pop music extraordinaire. He wrote the title track for the movie ‘That Thing You Do,’ and in his band’s eight years he has perfected (and parodied) the formulaic, three-minute hit.

Schlesinger interjected with a birthday song for his grandfather, who turned 93 this year and has lived in Syracuse since 1928, when he came to the city as a freshman at Syracuse University. Schlesinger’s grandparents led the movement to save the Landmark from destruction in the 1970s, and Grandpa Murray attended the show (about 10 rows back) to support Schlesinger and accept his birthday fanfare.

It took a few more minutes of light, anecdotal lyrics and acoustic guitars before a burst of wailing rock introduced ‘Stacy’s Mom,’ the Grammy-nominated, novelty-pop single. The middle-school girls squealed, screamed, cheered and sang along.

Confidence surged across the stage and swept the crowd to its feet for those sweet few seconds. Had the band plunged into one more refrain, the place may have overflowed with teenage lust and youthful exuberance. And then it happened:

‘Now, some songs about drinking.’

We’d waited for so long.

Fountains of Wayne roared through the highlights of its latest release, Welcome Interstate Managers, drilling the unsuspecting family audience with loud, sometimes vulgar rock and wryly apologizing at the same time. The kids spat out their bubble gum and brandished their new tattoos.

When a hit from the band’s 1996 debut morphed into a cover of ZZ Top’s ‘Sharp Dressed Man,’ the crowd leapt back to its feet. This time, the parents took the lead. And no one dared sit back down.

The Last American Virgins opened the show with a catchy but confused performance – everything about the local band seemed to clash with itself. On one side stood the punk rockers, clad in tight, black, sleeveless shirts with hair spiked and gelled. Their bandmates were a tall guitarist in a white suit and cowboy hat and a drummer wearing an Oxford shirt and jeans.

The discordance of their outfits matched the inexplicable variety of their set, which began as grunge and transformed into falsetto pop ripped straight out of a Pepsi jingle. Desperate to prove his prominence, the lead guitarist mounted the bass drum, but he could muster little more than a gingerly jump back to the stage.

Candid, another local rock band, kicked off the evening to a crowd that barely filled half the theater. They’re booked for the After the Prom party at Cicero-North Syracuse High School next month, but don’t worry – these guys are professionals. In their five years they have toured with Tonic, Vertical Horizon and Andrew W.K., and their 2002 Syracuse Area Music awards have contributed to their reputation as the best rock act in town.

Schlesinger knows that Fountains of Wayne’s successful single has typecast the band as a teeny-bopper act. But instead of letting a conservative audience restrain its music, Fountains lured young fans in and exposed them to a side of the band that they – and their parents – never bargained for.

Published on April 19, 2004 at 12:00 pm