I just saw John Waite. Last night, actually. Friday Night Free Concert at the Boardwalk. I was impressed. So much so that after the show, I wanted to get a t-shirt - but the line was INSANE for the merchandise table! No doubt due to the presence of John Waite up there, signing stuff. I wished there was a separate line for people who just wanted unsigned swag. Picture me walking around in a sweet-ass JOHN WAITE t-shirt. Not something I'd have previously imagined me in, but I have a life-longstanding policy of never refusing to go to a free show (except of course in cases where a prior obligation absolves me). And I always go in with an open mind, giving whoever's onstage full license to knock me out if they so choose and have the means to do.
John Waite had it in him, and he wasn't stingy with spreading it around. So I'd have been proud to sport his t-shirt if I'd had a chance to get one. Oh well.
Anyhow. He was really good! His band was tight. There was a woman at the front, stage left, who was doing a combination of interpretive dance and sign languaging the lyrics for the benefit of the hearing impaired as I sat denim-clad ass in the cool sand stealing sips from Sierra Summerfest bottles that my date had smuggled in her purse, grooving on the whirling lights of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk rides as dark came on.
It was a wonderful setting, and a fun show. Lord, his voice is great! And that, in the second show of a double header (shows at 6:30 and 8:30 in the Boardwalk Summer Concert Series). I found myself comparing him favorably to all sorts of people. He'd certainly sound awesome singing anything from any of your raspy voiced prominent rockers such as Mr. Henley or Mr. Stewart (or is that Sir Rod, now?). His voice is easily as good today as any of those guys in their prime. I don't know, maybe even a bit stronger. He can belt it out beautifully, with a lot of soul.
I didn't really recognize anything from the set except "Missing You". A few of the numbers sounded half-familiar. I'd probably half-heard them before. Oh wait, I definitely did recognize "When I See You Smile" from his late 80s tenure with bad-hair band instant elder statesmen Bad English. Lord, John, was that a wig or what back then? Holy cow. And I know I've heard songs from The Babys before, but if he played any The Babys songs they were not the ones I'd heard.
But it was a very good show. The lack of familiar numbers was no problem, because all of the material was solid. The lyrics were incredibly straightforward - he spends a lot of time in these songs thinking of you, smiling when he thinks of you, seeing you smile, thinking of you and having it always turn out good - but he belts it out clear like a beacon and it somehow seems heartfelt rather than embarrassingly clichéd. It hit me with a bit of an epiphany, thinking that maybe clever wordplay is not necessarily a hallmark of good songwriting. Maybe I need to knock that off a bit.
Pretty compact setlist. He only played a little over an hour, I think (I wonder whether the set was identical to the 6:30 show or whether he mixed it up a bit?). At the end the sign-dancing woman had some nice things to say about Mr. Waite and a tease for the remaining 4 shows in the Free Boardwalk Summer Concert Series. Maybe I'll see the Tubes.
All these years in Santa Cruz, I never bothered to go to one of these. Huh. Well, it would have been a cheap date, but dinner at Lucio's balanced that set of scales!
Actually, Lucio's is perfectly reasonable. And what an angel hair pasta pomodoro! Bliss through simplicity.
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