Every once in awhile a concert gets a performance from an artist or band that blows everyone else away and steals the show from all the other acts who played that night. I’ve seen some of these things happen and my favorite went down during the Dave Edmunds Rock N Roll Revue Tour of 1990. I was a big fan of Edmunds and the whole English contingent of rockers like him including Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello. For his revue tour, Edmunds was to play in a multi-act line-up along with famed pub rocker Graham Parker, Fabulous Thunderbirds lead singer Kim Wilson and Dion Di Mucci of Dion and the Belmonts fame. Di Mucci might have seemed like an odd choice to be part of this particular group of singers except that Edmunds had produced Dion’s latest album titled “Yo Frankie” which was released the year before.
I met up with several friends outside the Riviera for this Saturday night show and told them I could not wait to see how Dion would play with the fans. The 60’s pop singer seemed to be the odd man out in this line-up of players. I was way into the “Yo Frankie” album and heard at least three songs that could be released as singles from it. Besides all these acts, the backing band included the legendary Steve Cropper guitarist for the Stax records house band, Booker T and the MGs. The Miami Horns were also part of this band.
Dave Edmunds played host/emcee and opened the show with a smattering of his songs like the horn backed retro rocker “Closer to the Flame” and “I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll”, which was written by Nick Lowe. (By the way, Lowe always noted “I Knew the Bride” borrowed heavily from Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell” but that’s a story for another day.) Next up was Kim Wilson, minus the Fabulous Thunderbirds but still soulful with his rocking blues singing to songs like Sam & Dave’s “Wrap It Up” and the top 40 hit song “Tough Enough.” Wilson doesn’t look like your typical rocking lead singer but he makes any song sound hip and cool and lit up the ladies in the crowd too with his voice and confident swagger.
Third in the line-up was Graham Parker who unlike Edmunds, I had never seen live before. I liked his pop sensibilities and phrasing and the crowd was into his bite on “Local Girls” and “Under the Mask of Happiness.” The latter song coming from an album with the great title, “The Mona Lisa’s Sister.” Parker wasn’t touring with his old backing band the Rumour or The Shot but his voice goes well with whoever is playing with him.
Batting clean-up and boy did he clean up this night, was Dion Di Mucci. Dion got a nice opening reception from the crowd as he thumped out the new song “King of the New York Streets.” It’s kind of a streetwise updated version of his past hit “The Wanderer.” Dion then segued into “Written on the Subway Wall” which was the lead single from “Yo Frankie.” These songs were not hits but for at least this night, everyone in the Riviera went nuts for them. Good songs are good songs no matter if they’re familiar or not. I looked up a review of this show from the Chicago Tribune’s Greg Kot who wrote Dion looked “ill at ease” when playing these new cuts but I didn’t see that. I saw a veteran performer standing up tall to show his new musical wares. Interesting how perceptions can vary.
After the new material was covered, Dion rolled into his past hit “Ruby Baby.” That was followed by the familiar but always fun “Runaround Sue” which got everyone in the place to join in on the “hey, hey, whoa whoa ohh” singing. Dion walked out “The Wanderer” and then came the best song scene of the night as he started up the folk hit “Abraham, Martin and John.” Dave Edmunds and Graham Parker each took a verse after Dion, all of them stepping up to the same microphone. This was one of those “Wow, ain’t that cool” extra special moments you don’t see in most shows. From that point on, Dion DiMucci owned the night as the surprise show stealing star.
Edmunds returned to round out the show with cuts like the Springsteen penned “From Small Things, Big Things One Day Come”, “I Hear You Knockin” and the revved up “Crawling from the Wreckage.” Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay” was covered then the whole group of singers came out to close things with the Little Richard oldie “Keep a Knockin”. This almost three hour concert with more than thirty songs played was finally done. Four singers played their best with one guy shining just a bit brighter than the others. Dion might have sung “King of the New York Streets” but that night at the Riviera Theatre, he was king of the Chicago Streets.
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