[bomp] Re: Little Steven Tour #2

[hoodoo3005@xxxxxxx]

From: Blair Buscareno <blairb@mac.com>

<<As many of you know, Little Steven's Underground Garage is running
cross-country tours.  Last night, the tour was back at Irving Plaza.  
This time, the
headliners were The Shadows of Knight, with The Romantics in the 
support
slot.  The Charms are the other band that are on the full tour.
I've never been a big fan, but at least a couple
years ago they didn't bore me to tears with their current, extreme
rock-ist approach.  But Little Steven seems to be in love with them.
He's got 'em on next month's tour, too.  (Well, at least I'll have time
to go downstairs and hang with friends for awhile.)>>

I'd never heard of the Charms before this show played Chicago, and I 
don't think I'll want to hear them again. When they were on, I did 
exactly what Blair says he'll do and went downstairs to hang with my 
friends.

<<The Romantics...These guys still know how to do it.  Besides the
obligatory "What I Like About You" (still a great song) to finish up,
they included one of my old favorites, "When I Look In Your Eyes", as
well as "Tomboy" and "First In Line".  Plus, a couple songs off their
disc from a couple years back (which was DAMN good) and covers of both
"Come See Me" and "Midnight To Six".  About the only song I wasn't nuts
for the entire night was probably "Talking In Your Sleep".  Still, 
there
was an element of the crowd that was obviously expecting to hear it, so
I can hardly fault them for doing it.  Oh...And the band was absolutely
flying.  Their playing was fantastic and they were clearly way into 
it.>>

Like I was telling somebody else...I like the Romantics, but  I recall 
them being pleasant, but not essential (sorta like Greg Kihn).  They 
musta been through some hard times or something, because they roared 
back into the 2000's kicking ass left and right! This is the second 
time I've seen them in the last 2-3 years and both times I was like: 
"wow, is that the nice-guy power-pop band I remember from the 
eighties??" Thumbs up, all the way...

<<Once The Romantics were done, the room really emptied out.>>

Funny, the same thing happened in Chicago AND THE SHADOWS HAPPEN TO BE 
FROM HERE!

<<While I understand Little Steven wanting the 60s band to headline, I 
can't
imagine it does much for their ego when a huge portion of the crowd
leaves.  Sure, I know The Shadows of Knight had some big hits in the
60s, but The Romantics had hits WAY more recently.  Granted, their last
one was probably 20-25 years ago, but "What I Like About You" is still
all over the place.  Can you really say the same thing about any of The
Shadows of Knight records?  (OK, maybe somewhere else in the country 
you
can, but that's definitely not true here in the NYC area.)>>

Well, Chicago's oldies station plays "Gloria," but as I said, the 
Shadows are FROM here, and a lot of their original fans are still 
around (judging by their recent show), so that's a given.

<<I saw The Shadows of Knight 9 years ago at the first Cavestomp.  They
were awful back then.  I actually walked out about the time Jim Sohns
(the only original member) opened his shirt all the way and started up 
a
song called "Red Hot American Girl".  So I was prepared to walk out
right away.

I didn't.  They started with "Someone Like Me".  That one was on one of
the first garage comps I ever picked up.  And, although the band looked
awful, they didn't absolutely butcher it.  It was a good way to start.

Within a couple songs, though, I went to the back.  By the time they 
hit
"I Got My Mojo Working", I took a break.  The material was good, but 
the
band was...Well, they just didn't have the fire that The Romantics had. 

They didn't seem to burn with the intensity I wanted.  One friend said
the band reminded him of a bunch of guys you find working in a suburban
guitar store. >>

I got that vibe, too. Yes, I heard the story about how they bombed at 
Cavestomp, so I didn't quite know what to expect. You can tell the guys 
have learned their lesson, re: who their current fans are. The 
keyboardist was playing a 1960's combo organ, and even though the band 
looked like an arena-rock group from 1982, you could tell they were 
listening a little closer to the old Dunwich-label records. It still 
had the suburban-guitar-store stank, but at least this time the SOK 
sounded like they had half a clue. Got to meet Jim backstage, and he's 
one of the coolest guys you'd ever wanna meet.

I liked the show for what it was, but a surprising number of people 
hated it (ESPECIALLY those who hadn't heard of them before and came to 
see one of the other bands, or was brought there by some friends, or 
what have you). This one friend of mine said they sounded like Three 
Dog Night (yikes). And after the show, I headed up the street to a bar 
where a bunch of my mod/Northern soul friends were hanging out and 
spinning records...when I told them where I'd just came from, they were 
like: "oh man, I wanted to go, but I heard they were TERRIBLE..."

I'll go on record as saying I liked the show, but they have a bad rep 
for classic-rock cheese that they gotta overcome...


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