Smash Mouth to play Upstate NY concert with new lead singer

Smash Mouth

In this 2018 file photo, Smash Mouth performs at the Taste of Syracuse in Syracuse, N.Y. Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.com

Somebody once told me... the show must go on.

Smash Mouth is returning to Upstate New York next month for a concert with a new lead singer, nearly a year after a chaotic performance led to frontman Steve Harwell retiring. The “All Star” band, now featuring singer Zach Goode, will perform at Frog Alley Brewing Company in Schenectady on Sept. 24 at 7 p.m.

Tickets are on sale starting at $25 through Eventbrite. Must be 21 or older to attend the show.

Smash Mouth is best known for late ‘90s, early 2000s pop-rock hits like “All Star,” “Walkin’ On the Sun,” and the “Shrek” soundtrack cover of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.” Harwell’s last performance with the band came in October 2021 at The Big Sip beer festival in Bethel, N.Y., where he was seen in a viral video slurring his words, threatening a fan and even appearing to give a Nazi salute amid some technical issues on stage.

Harwell, 55, announced his retirement days later, saying his health issues became too much to handle. He was reportedly briefly replaced by an unidentified friend of the band during a month-long hiatus last summer due to cardiomyopathy and heart failure, but a rep said he was cleared at the time to resume performing with medication to manage his condition.

“Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of being a Rockstar performing in front of sold-out arenas and have been so fortunate to live out that dream. To my bandmates, it’s been an honor performing with you all these years and I can’t think of anyone else I would have rather gone on this wild journey with,” Harwell said in a statement.

Smash Mouth recruited Goode, a New York City-born singer who was classically trained at Stagedoor Manor in the Catskills, to join the group in March. The band recorded a cover of Rick Astley’s “Never Going to Give You Up” with Goode, released in June, and resumed touring with a new energy.

“His beautifully rough-and-tumble... yet pitch-perfect and rangy... vocal style instantly proving a perfect match for Smash Mouth’s beachy brand of high energy Alt-pop,” an official bio said.

Smash Mouth, which performed at the Taste of Syracuse in 2018 and Oswego Harborfest in 2019, has no other Upstate New York concerts currently scheduled.

See video of the band performing with Goode:

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