Then Fountains of Wayne came on, playing “All Kinds of Time.” Holy shit, is that a good song. What a great undulating guitar thing in the middle. Shit! Apparently Collingwood, one of the songwriting pair of fountains, has or had a drinking problem—well, who wouldn’t after singing a song as good as this one? He managed to catch the moment nobody has ever caught, the suspended hopeful moment as the quarterback is looking for a receiver, the most poignant and killing moment in football. There are some great chords, and Collingwood is able to control his falsetto notes, and the whole thing is just total genius. The quarterback knows that no one can touch him now. He’s strangely at ease. The play is going to end in a sack—we realize it, gathered around the widescreen TV—and then this slow wavy-gravy warble of a guitar solo comes on that is like the look of a football in flight—the football that he hasn’t yet thrown—and it’s totally mystical and soul-shaking. Power pop is the name given to Fountains of Wayne’s style of music, it seems—but whatever it’s called, they are great songwriters and they deserve thanks.
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