It’s been 25 years since Wheatus released its debut self-titled album. Two decades, a One Direction cover and several social media trends later, the New York City-based pop-rock band best known for the track “Teenage Dirtbag” is witnessing a rebirth of its teenage angst anthems.
Frontman Brendan B. Brown said “Wheatus” wasn’t oversaturated in early 2000s media. The record didn’t have mainstream status.
“The album is kind of quirky and doesn't follow the script as much as a lot of the stuff from that era does,” he said. “I think for that reason, people were able to find their own unique little story in whatever song, mostly ‘Teenage Dirtbag.’”
On Tuesday night at Heartwood Soundstage, the band shared 16 of those stories, spanning its entire discography.
Brown and backing vocalist Gabrielle Sterbenz are currently embarking on an 18-date North American tour, for which they’re performing stripped-down acoustic sets. Over 50 fans from several generations packed into the indoor stage at Heartwood as the duo performed songs from their over two-decade long career.
Having already seen Wheatus in Orlando and St. Augustine, 56-year-old Jane Kelly and her 21-year-old son Brighton Kelly made the trip from Hernando County to see the band for a third time.
Jane discovered Wheatus on a BBC America awards show on TV and quickly snagged several of their CDs, which she would later download on her iPod. She downloaded Twitter, now X, to connect with the band — specifically with frontman Brown.
“He gives the same energy no matter what — I love that,” she said. “He's a very humble person.”
Brown stopped Brighton at the Orlando show to sign his record. At the next show, Brown remembered his fan’s name.
Brighton, who deeply identifies with Wheatus’ music, said he appreciates how down-to-earth the band is.
“I think it's great that they can perform these small venues and have such an intimate crowd, even though they have this song that's so popular,” he said.
Brown donned a Superman glove, Nike high-tops and a T-shirt depicting himself and Wheatus bass player Matthew Milligan. Next to Sterbenz’s pink blouse, slacks and red-rimmed glasses, the duo could have been mistaken for an English professor and her student.
Raw and unscripted, Wheatus’ set was personalized for the local community. Brown frequently voiced his disgust for Gainesville tap water (claiming it tasted like a mixture of grass and sulphur) and changed “Americans in Amsterdam” to “Americans in Gainesville.”
Though Brown and Sterbenz picked the set’s opening and closing tracks, all of the 14 other songs were spontaneously chosen by the audience. The crowd shouted for “Lemonade,” “Truffles” and “The London Sun,” proving not all in attendance thought of the band as a one-hit wonder.
Several songs the audience suggested, including “From Listening to Lightning” and “Mope,” had not yet been performed on this tour.
Nevertheless, Wheatus never missed a beat, jumping straight into the requested tunes after opening each song with an amusing anecdote, like how Brown was encouraged by the alternative rock band Eve 6 to make “Lemonade” less complicated but stubbornly refused. It would take him months to learn how to play the song live.
During the Heartwood set, Wheatus changed the explicit lyrics to “Lemonade,” adjusting for the children in attendance. Brown regularly apologized for his profanity.
One of the younger concertgoers was 13-year-old Asher Chase. Tuesday’s show was his first-ever concert.
His mom, 38-year-old Savannah Chase, said experiencing Wheatus’ music with her children has been a full-circle moment.
“‘Teenage Dirtbag’ is on our car family playlist, so it's one of those songs we all sing together,” she said. “Now that my kids are teenagers, it's been really fun to share some of the bands that I used to listen to with them.”
At the end of the set, the Chase family sang along to Wheatus’ breakthrough hit — only this time, it wasn’t blasting from their car stereo.
“Teenage Dirtbag,” which has amassed nearly 1 billion streams on Spotify, started with a riff inspired by ACDC’s “Back in Black” and Rush’s “Tom Sawyer,” Brown said. The singer attended an all-boys Catholic high school, meaning “Noelle,” the female subject of the song, is fictional, he added.
Brown invited the audience to harmonize with him on the higher, female-sung verse. He wanted them to sound good for their videos, so they rehearsed it once over.
One of the audience members and temporary backup singers was Oliver Devlin, a 39-year-old “recovering teenage dirtbag” and longtime Wheatus fan.
Things haven’t changed much since the ‘90s, he said, when the band was getting its start.
“The teenage angst of it, the wanting the girl that you can't get, it’s a tale as old as time,” Devlin said. “I mean, how many teenagers don’t still feel like outcasts?
Contact Isabel Kraby at ikraby@alligator.org. Follow her on X @isabelgkraby.
Isabel is a general assignment reporter for The Avenue and is starting her first semester with The Alligator. She is a junior journalism student and transferred to UF from Daytona State College after her freshman year. When she's not writing for Ave, she loves going to concerts, crocheting and designing spreads for Rowdy Magazine.
