The Smithereens rocked the State Theatre on Saturday, February 16, 2013.The Smithereens played 30 songs in a concert that lasted just over two hours. Fans that arrived earlier were treated to classic rock videos played on the theatre’s movie size screens. The videos were part of the band’s personal collection and featured the likes of the Rolling Stones, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jimi Hendrix and many more. The club filled up nicely and by nine o’clock the crowd was ready to rock as The Smithereens took the stage.
The band saved their hits for the end and enjoyed pulling deep into their past catalog of songs spanning a career that is almost 33 years old. They opened the show “I Don’t Want to Lose You” followed by “Listen to Me.” They Smithereens were finding their groove and sounding better by the time they played their third song “Behind the wall of Sleep.” That was their first of many hits as the song had hit #23 on the Mainstream Rock Charts. The fourth song was “Groovy Tuesday” which they followed with “Alone at Midnight.” All of the songs so far had come from the 1986 release “Especially for You.” That continued with the sixth song “Time and Time Again.”
They switched to songs from their 1999 release “God Save the Smithereens” when they kicked into “Try.” Next they performed “She’s Got Away.” The ninth song was “War of my Mind” off of 1994’s “Date with the Smithereens.” The band performed the hit “Tell Me When Did Things Go So Wrong” off of 1991’s “Blow Up” release.
The band played their only number one song on the Mainstream Rock Charts “Only a Memory” from 1988’s “Green Thoughts.” They stayed with that album for another hit “House We Used to Live In.” Next they played the album’s title track before performing another hit from the album “Drown in my Own Tears.” The band played the fifth song from that album “The World We Know.”
The band played “Kiss Your Tears Away” from their 1989 hit album “11.” Then they went back to “Especially for You” to play the title track. The Smithereens performed “Blue Period” from “11” next. However, the band apparently wanted to fit in as many songs from “Especially for You” as they played “In A Lonely Place.” The band played a love song and then the Beatles’ “Hide Your Love Away.”
Then they played “Sorry” off their latest release “2011.” Then the band launched into their hit “Yesterday Girl” from “11.” The band played “Flowers” followed by “Baby Be Good” from the “11” release. They played “Now and Then” from the “Blow Up” release. They finished their set with their hit “Blood and Roses” from “Especially for You.” The band was getting wild as guitarist Jim Babjak and bassist “The Thrilla” both played in the crowd on the dance floor. Luckily no one was hurt with Babjak playing with Pete Townsend like windmills.
The band returned for a three song encore. They started the encore off with their hit “Top of the Pops” off of the “Blow Up” Release. Next they went into “Blues Before and After” from “11.” They finished the night off with a version of their monster hit “A Girl Like You.” The song also featured a bit of The Beatles’ “If I Needed Someone” thrown in the middle for good measure.
After two hours they had finished a monster show performing over 30 songs. The band decided to make the evening even more memorable agreeing to stay after to sign autographs. MY wife he is a huge Smithereens fan and who has seen the group several times in their prime said this show was one of the best she had seen.
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