Rivers cuomo is ambling through the shadows and light near the Hot Dog on a Stick stand close by the Santa Monica Pier, hands shoved into black skinny-type jeans, dark hoody covering a dark T-shirt, baseball cap worn brim forward, slender, on the very shortish side, and, unless you are an avid fan, hardly recognizable as the frontman for Weezer, Nineties nerd-rock giants, emo legends and purveyors of hook-filled whimsicalities such as “Undone – The Sweater Song,” “Buddy Holly” and “The Good Life” on the group’s first two records, the Blue Album and 1996’s more confessional Pinkerton. Thereafter, for the past two decades, the band has alternately hoped against hope to recapture that early magic and not given a hoot, all depending on the vagaries of the man in charge.…
