Weezer: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

April 1, 2019 | Robin Hilton -- This is probably the loosest you’ll ever see Weezer. Known for meticulously produced — and electric — live shows, frontman Rivers Cuomo and the rest of the band settled in behind the Tiny Desk for an entirely acoustic set without the in-ear monitors, click track or vocal separation they usually employ to stay locked-in and tight for bigger performances. The result is surprisingly intimate, with songs that feel lived-in and rumpled, like an old flannel shirt from the ’90s. Weezer opened with one of the band’s rarer songs: “Longtime Sunshine,“ a 1994 track that’s only appeared as a Rivers Cuomo home recording on bootlegs and compilations, and on the deluxe edition of Pinkerton. Then the band performed a stripped-down version of its electro-pop song “Living in L.A.,“ from Weezer’s new self-titled “Black Album,“ followed by another deep cut, “Across the Sea.“ It’s a song Cuomo originally wrote in his early 20s, inspired by a fan letter he’d received from a young woman in Japan. Wh