Huey Lewis & the News Celebrate "Sports" at Coney Island

"New York, New York, is everything they say / And no place that I'd rather be."  That's the first line of "The Heart of Rock & Roll," which opens Huey Lewis & the News' 1983 album, Sports.  It was also the perfect choice to open the band's concert at Coney Island last night.  Touring in honor of the 30th anniversary of that #1 LP, Huey & the News began by blazing their way through the first four tracks of soul-infused pop, culminating in "I Want a New Drug."  "Thirty years is a long time. Think about it. Thirty years ago. No Internet. No cellphones. No CDs. No real personal computers. No back pain. Those were the days," Huey reminisced.  "Now we're gonna turn the record over. 'Cause that's what we did, kids," he laughed.  "And we're gonna rock a little harder on side B," he warned, starting up a one-two punch of "Walking on a Thin Line" and "Finally Found a Home."  The sound mix was the first tolerable one I've heard in the Seaside Summer Series, especially impressive considering there were nine musicians onstage.  Huey was quite the humble frontman, turning his back to the crowd while his bandmates soloed, so the focus wouldn't be on him.  And he sounded exactly the same as he did thirty years ago, save for the title lyric of "If This is It," which he swallowed a little.  After the rollicking "Honky Tonk Blues," Lewis announced, "So that was it. Sports. Forty-two minutes of American music. Now what?"

They chose a new number, "While We're Young."  Props to Lewis for inserting a fresh one into the hit parade, and a good one at that.  With the song moving along at an almost rocksteady riddim, Huey sang the smooth chorus, peppering in some impassioned yelps and howls.  Then they went back in time to their debut record, pulling out "Trouble in Paradise."  Huey modified the song's lyric "Down at the brothers in the parking lot" to "Down in Coney Island in a parking lot," eliciting cheers from the crowd.  While Lewis has been known to adapt this line to the city he's in, the fact that we were in an actual parking lot made it just that much sweeter.  During "(She's) Some Kind of Wonderful," I noticed that the real party seemed to be happening out on the boardwalk, where a horde of dancing fans watched through the chain-link fence.  Looking back towards the stage, I noticed everyone inside the fence was also grooving out of their seats.  That is, everyone except for those who brought their own.  I guess if you're gonna lug your chair on the subway and down the street, you're damn well gonna sit in it.  Halfway through the upbeat "But It's Alright," a girl walked onstage, carrying a xylophone.  As she held it out for him, Huey plinked out a sprightly solo to roars from the audience.  The band capitalized on the energy and segued directly into "We're Not Here for a Long Time (We're Here for a Good Time)" to finish the set.

Hopefully we wouldn't have another Smokey Robinson situation on our clapping hands.  Two minutes later, they returned.  "Oh, alright. If you insist," teased Huey.  "We've had a lot of requests. So many hits, so little time."  Prefacing it, "Who knew that when we wrote this song that we'd have to play it every night of our lives?" they launched into "The Power of Love."  This was my favorite song when I was six, so needless to say, it was great.  "Do You Believe in Love" didn't necessarily strike me as an encore-worthy follow-up, but the News nailed the backup vocals, so I didn't complain.  After that, Bill Gibson started a rumbling drum solo, and Huey stepped in with a train engine blast on his harmonica to kick off the blue-collar anthem "Workin' for a Livin'."  The crowd clapped along energetically, and after introducing the band members, Huey shouted, "Once again, you just heard the Neeewwws!" before the song's final notes.

So little time, indeed.  When you have to play an album in its entirely, I suppose you have to make sacrifices.  But I think maybe Patrick Bateman said it best:  "Do you like Huey Lewis & the News? Their early work was a little too 'new-wave' for my taste, but when Sports came out in '83, I think they really came into their own, both commercially and artistically. The whole album has a clear, crisp sound, and a new sheen of consummate professionalism that really gives the songs a big boost. He's been compared to Elvis Costello, but I think Huey has a far more bitter, cynical sense of humor. In '86, Huey released this, Fore!, their most accomplished album. I think their undisputed masterpiece is 'Hip to Be Square,' a song so catchy most people probably don't listen to the lyrics, but they should! Because it's not just about the pleasures of conformity, and the importance of trends, it's also a personal statement about the band itself!"  Even still, there was no place that I'd rather be.

HUEY LEWIS & THE NEWS - 08.15.13 - CONEY ISLAND SEASIDE SUMMER CONCERT SERIES (1 hour, 25 minutes)

SET -
The Heart of Rock & Roll / Heart & Soul / Bad is Bad / I Want a New Drug / Walking on a Thin Line > Finally Found a Home / If This is It / You Crack Me Up / Honky Tonk Blues / While We're Young / Trouble in Paradise / (She's) Some Kind of Wonderful / But It's Alright > We're Not Here for a Long Time (We're Here for a Good Time)

ENCORE -
The Power of Love / Do You Believe in Love / Workin' for a Livin'

Smokey Robinson Concert Ends Awkwardly in Coney Island

The Seaside Summer Concert Series, an annual concert series where they exhume the bodies of hitmakers from the '60s and '70s to make them perform in the worst venue possible, continued last night with Smokey Robinson.  While the sound wasn't great, it was miles ahead of the atrocious mix at last year's Jacksons show.  The audience was still oddly divided into people who paid $5 for a seat, those who brought their own chairs, and people like me who stood in the back for free.  This kind of segregation over such a large space doesn't unify the concertgoers into a crowd, making any audience participation fall extremely flat.  "Going to a Go-Go" started the show, but Robinson's vocals felt weak and overused.  By the fifth song, "Ooh Baby, Baby" his voice had warmed up, and he received a standing ovation from a number of fans.  "We should've played that first," he remarked.  Maybe, or maybe he shouldn't have front-loaded "I Second That Emotion" and "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" before he had a chance to find his pipes.  "This is Thursday night in Coney Island. You had a thousand choices and you came to spend it with us. We love you," said the gracious Robinson.  "Right now we are going to boogie," he said, taking the opportunity to show off some dance moves.  When they evolved into pelvic thrusting, Smokey stopped himself, admitting, "I got a little carried away, didn't I?"

I've seen Toots Hibbert (70), Mavis Staples (74), and Jerry Lee Lewis (77) this year.  Smokey is 73 years old, and among his fellow septuagenarians, he is up there with Toots in terms of impressive agility and mental clarity.  He had no memory lapses whatsoever when telling the tale of how he wrote "The Way You Do the Things You Do" for the Temptations while he was driving late at night on a cross-country tour.  He performed the song in a medley that included "Get Ready" and "My Girl," the latter of which saw moments of prime Smokey falsetto, most notably on the "I got sooo much love to give" line.  He seemed satisfied with the crowd's performance as well, stating, "Everybody out there was singing that one.  You sounded GREAT!  I thought that you may have just been here to see a concert, but I knew after that you are the Seaside Summer Choir."  He advised us not to miss Motown: The Musical on Broadway, and proceeded with a story about Stevie Wonder approaching him at a party with a song idea.  Exaggerating the duration of Wonder's head-swaying blindisms for comedic effect, Smokey said, "He offered to drive me home so I could get started.  But you know I wasn't gonna go for that.  He drives much too fast."  Smokey giggled with delight at his joke, and dropped into the track, "The Tears of a Clown."  Stories like this are why you go to see these legends in concert.  However, you don't go to hear them hawk their latest Cracker Barrel-released CD.  "For those of you who've never been, Cracker Barrel is a store restaurant.  You can go to Cracker Barrel and order some food.  The food is great.  Then you can go shopping, and when you're done, you can eat.  Women love it," Smokey laughed.  It was a weird bit of promotion that didn't go over particularly well.  After all, he did use the same adjective to describe the food at Cracker Barrel as he did our singing ability.  The song he performed following his pitch was called "That Place."  With a chorus that contains the line, "There's no place like that place," I couldn't help but think he was singing about the chain restaurant with the rocking chairs on the front porch.  It was only during the number's finale, where Smokey unleashed some orgasmic wails, that the crowd got on board.  "Just to See Her" came next, but it delved too far into '80s cheese with its "Flashdance... What a Feeling"-reminiscent ending to excite me much.  Accompanied solely by guitar for the first half of the tune, Smokey closed the show with "The Tracks of My Tears."  It's one of my favorite songs, so I'm glad I got to hear it, albeit past its prime.

The audience leapt to their feet, showering Robinson with cheers as he departed.  The stage lights remained on, and the drummer even seemed reluctant to leave.  We waited and waited, applauding for an encore.  Six minutes later, Borough President Marty Markowitz appeared.  "I feel exactly the same way you do.  Let me put it this way: It's show business," he said disappointedly with that same diarrhea-of-the-mouth he's famous for.  It made the lack of an encore that much more awkward.  He encouraged us to go to Luna Park and the Wonder Wheel, but everything was closed.  Nathan's was packed though, the talk in the long lines all revolving around the concert's anticlimactic ending.

SMOKEY ROBINSON - 07.25.13 - CONEY ISLAND SEASIDE SUMMER CONCERT SERIES (1 hour, 5 minutes)

SET -

Going to a Go-Go / I Second That Emotion / You've Really Got a Hold on Me / Quiet Storm / Ooh Baby, Baby / The Way You Do the Things You Do > Get Ready > My Girl / My Girl (tease) / My Girl (tease) / The Tears of a Clown / That Place / Just to See Her / The Tracks of My Tears

The Jacksons Compete with Fireworks in Coney Island

It was a beautiful Saturday night in Coney Island for the Seaside Summer Concert Series to continue with the Jacksons, making a free appearance on their Unity Tour.  There was a solid setlist and the musicians were top notch, but the show was incredibly disorganized.

When I arrived at the venue, it was quite clear this thing was a clusterfuck.  Greeted with a confusing maze of barricades going the entire length of the block, it wasn't obvious where anyone was supposed to go.  "This is the line to pay," said an employee.  I thought it was a free concert, but you could pay $5 for a seat.  If you brought your own chair, you could be penned into another area.  If you wanted to stand, you had to stand way the fuck in the back.

We got there in time to hear misogynistic warm-up comic Artie Fuqua delivering some groundbreaking comedic material: the difference between men and women.  A 
dick-sucking parade for borough president Marty Markowitz followed.  As Marty began trotting out a list of sponsors so long it seemed as if every Brooklyn business was represented, and then asked the audience to contribute money to the men going around with blue buckets, it became increasingly obvious that they didn't have the funds to pay for the show.  Or at least for a decent sound guy.

The Jacksons started things off with "Can You Feel It," which would've been more appropriately titled, "Can You Hear It," the bass and drums creating a nasty muck that the vocals and guitars couldn't cut through.  Amazingly, the sound wasn't fixed for the entirety of the show, and it really put a damper on what could've been an excellent concert.  Jermaine, Marlon, Tito, and Jackie blazed through a mix of Jackson 5 and Jacksons' songs, and even five of Michael's solo efforts.  Three Jermaine Jackson tunes, including my favorite, "Let's Get Serious," were performed, likely a contractual obligation, considering his refusal to join the Jacksons when they signed to CBS.

A hokey scripted segment where the Jacksons sat on stools and recounted the first time they went to Detroit to meet Berry Gordy accompanied a video slideshow of Jackson 5 photos from the '70s.  As they finished up "Time Waits for No One," fireworks from the Cyclones game at neighboring MCU Park lit up the night sky, the explosions ricocheting off the surrounding buildings.  "Heaven Knows I Love You, Girl" was completely obscured by the cacophony, and many audience members shifted their eyes to the pyrotechnics to the right.  Following a tribute to Michael of "Gone Too Soon" by Jermaine, they finally went off-script, asking with a chuckle, "Did you enjoy the fireworks?"  At least they could laugh about it.

A rushed medley of Jackson 5 hits including "I Want You Back," "ABC," "The Love You Save," "Never Can Say Goodbye," and "All I Do is Think of You" snatched back the crowd, everyone's hands swaying during the mélange's finale, "I'll Be There."  After the one-two MJ punch of "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," they rocked the crowd with an extended "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" and danced their way offstage.  Marty Markowitz got on the mic and asked for more money.  No "Dancing Machine?"  The sound crew's paychecks should all go into the blue buckets.

THE JACKSONS – 08.11.12 – CONEY ISLAND SEASIDE SUMMER CONCERT SERIES (1 hour, 37 minutes)

SET –

Can You Feel It / Blame It on the Boogie > I Wanna Be Where You Are / Rock with You / Show You the Way to Go / Lovely One / Lookin’ Through the Windows / Time Waits for No One / Heaven Knows I Love You, Girl > Push Me Away > Man of War / Gone Too Soon / I Want You Back > ABC > The Love You Save > Never Can Say Goodbye > All I Do is Think of You > I’ll Be There / Dynamite > Let’s Get Serious / Do What You Do / Can’t Let Her Get Away / This Place Hotel / Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ / Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough / Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)