MixFest is fun but lacks the hard edges
This year WBMX-FM ("Mix" 98.5) decided to go indoors for its MixFest, holding it at the FleetCenter and offering a generous platter of pop craftsmanship. With David Gray, John Mayer, Guster, Rubyhorse, and two of today's pop princesses - Pink and Avril Lavigne - to go along with old-school metalists Def Leppard, the show was a decided walk on the mild side. Good songs, solid choruses, well-strummed acoustic guitars, polite thank-yous: This was a show moms could love, and many of them in the audience did, shaking and shimmying alongside their children.
It was the Def Leps who shook up the house up after what was a sometimes too- pleasant evening. With rip-snorting guitars and drum wallops to back Joe Elliot's effortless vocal gymnastics, the quintet helped the audience get the Lep out during its closing set. The band mixed old sing-along classics with new tunes from its fine new CD, "X," which recalls the best of the hummable rock that once created Def Lep hysteria.