Coming back after a cancelled show back in the spring, The Smithereens had an enthusiastic crowd to greet them in Fort Wayne on June 18, 2022.
Walking in with my daughter, my immediate reaction was, “That sounds like an R.E.M. cover.” Sure enough, the opening band was a local R.E.M. cover band called Driver 8 (named after the song from R.E.M.’s 1985 album Fables of the Reconstruction). I didn’t know who was going to open for The Smithereens, but a cover band wasn’t among my ideas. That being said, Driver 8 were solid. It was the singer’s first gig with the band, and he showed no signs of nerves and knew how to work a crowd. Hearing a live version of “Superman” was a treat, as I hadn’t heard that song in years.
Thanks to someone forgetting to put a microphone on the stand for lead singer Marshall Crenshaw, The Smithereens’ Jim Babjak, Dennis Diken, and Severo Incarnacion started the show with a drum solo by Diken (who has always been one of the steadiest rock drummers of the last few decades) and a Link Wray cover while Crenshaw found a microphone backstage. The first Smithereens song they played was “Behind the Wall of Sleep,” and, despite Crenshaw forgetting some of the first verse lyrics, they were off to the races.
Jim Babjak still shreds, and it was great to hear them play a lot of tracks from the Especially for You album and to just watch them remind everyone how they’re still America’s Rock Band after forty years. They closed with a couple Beatles covers, delighting my daughter and everyone else.
They still cook, and they still have many, many hits that you love to hear.
Keep your mind open.
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