Those of you who read monoblogue last weekend know that I spent quite a bit of time looking at the Maryland legislative website. Don’t get me wrong, I actually enjoy that sort of research but after awhile all those bills and fiscal notes look the same and one needs a break. Luckily I had secured a ticket to a great event that happened last Saturday night:
It’s a bit of cheating from a “local” rock perspective, but there’s not a lot of national acts who come down this way at this time of year. So I took a pause for the cause, as part of the 98 Days ’til Summer Flip Flop Ball proceeds went to benefit the Food Bank of Delaware. (And to think there was a developer who wanted to tear down at least a part of Ruddertowne to put up more condos.) Fortunately Ruddertowne is still standing and the event was pretty well attended as you can see here. Where the crowd is gathered is where the munchies were set up, and despite the damage it did to my diet, the finger food that was served was excellent.
I’ll cheerfully admit that I own no flip-flops (if you saw my feet you’d thank me for that) but I decided to make the trip up to Dewey Beach anyway once I found out who was headlining because I hadn’t seen the Smithereens since their Date tour in 1995 and I like the group’s music. I believe my quote when I heard the promo for the event on the radio was, “Yeah, I’m f**king there!” They’re sort of a departure from the heavy stuff I like but they put together some good tunes.
First up though was a Bruce Springsteen tribute band called E Street Shuffle.
I managed to bury the drummer in the shot (he’s stage left behind the man with the black guitar), but these six guys played about a dozen of Bruce’s hits and kept the crowd entertained for the hour or so they were on. Admittedly I’m not much of a Springsteen fan so I’m not going to vouch for how well they represented the experience of seeing Bruce live, but they were pretty good musicians anyway. And they did their job, which was to warm up the crowd for the headlining act.
Since the last time I saw the Smithereens in ’95, they parted ways with original bassist Mike Mesaros, replacing him with Severo “the Thrilla” Jornacion. He’s closest to the camera in the picture above. So as you can tell, their website picture is a bit dated. Here’s another shot of the Thrilla:
The other three have been together pretty much from day one in the suburbia of northern New Jersey. From top to bottom is lead vocalist and guitarist Pat DiNizio, lead guitarist and vocalist Jim Babjak, and drummer Dennis Diken who also had a turn singing a Beatles cover.
So now you’ve been introduced to the band, and you wonder what the heck were they famous for? Most of the songs they played came from a group of four albums that spanned a period from 1986 to 1991 – Especially For You (1986), Green Thoughts (1988), 11 (1990), and Blow Up (1991). While the order may not be perfect and I might have missed a song, this is the set list as I recall it:
- Only A Memory (opening song)
- Top Of The Pops
- Since You Went Away (from Pat DiNizio’s solo album)
- House We Used To Live In
- Especially For You
- Spellbound
- Drown In My Own Tears (by “special request” for a lucky lady in the audience)
- Don’t Bother Me (from their latest CD, Meet The Smithereens)
- I Wanna Be Your Man (also from “Meet“)
- I Want To Hold Your Hand (also from “Meet“)
- Behind The Wall Of Sleep
- Blood & Roses
- Room Without A View
- Yesterday Girl
- A Girl Like You (closed the set)
- Blues Before And After (first encore song)
- Behind Blue Eyes (a cover of The Who’s classic to close the show, with a lot of our singing.)
In case you’re wondering, Meet The Smithereens, which came out last year, is a song-by-song tribute to the Beatles’ Meet The Beatles album. The group claims a heavy influence from a number of British Invasion groups and in this case they decided to pay homage by redoing that album with their own style. In all they played about an hour and 40 minutes. I have a another band shots that turned out halfway decent, I believe it was during an extended solo from House We Used To Live In:
As I mentioned I’d seen these guys on the tour supporting the album A Date With The Smithereens in 1995 and also was at a show on the tour after Blow Up in 1992. All three of these have been club dates and in the latter two I found out Jim wasn’t afraid to go into the crowd and play, literally playing at the bar next to me in ’95 and at arms’ length in front of me last Saturday. But this time part of the deal was the band hanging around after the show and signing items they had for sale. So now I have this nice hat to wear:
I had only two issues with the concert itself. One is that they played nothing off probably my favorite Smithereens album, 1994’s A Date With The Smithereens – not even the single from that CD called Miles From Nowhere. It’s just a minor quibble since there were other songs that I wasn’t expecting to hear like Spellbound or Room Without A View.
The second problem was something that I swear follows me and that’s sound issues. These weren’t all that bad, just a faulty microphone during the Beatles part of the show where I couldn’t hear the vocals very well. It was fixed after a couple songs and they were good to go again.
It was a great show though, and I’d recommend making the trip to see them if they come nearby. That may be a possibility since I understand they are releasing a double CD (one with their classics recorded live, the other with new stuff) later this spring or early summer. It’ll be something to add to my CD collection for sure.
Love the Smithereens! Heard about this show but had other plans. Too bad Suzanne Vega didn’t show up for a guest appearance to do that wonderful duet, the name of which I cannot remember . . .
Glad you had a good time . . .
Thanks! And the song you’re thinking of is Blue Period from the 11 CD.