Blown to Smithereens Tour May 5, 1995 (29 years ago) Sports Live! Indianapolis, Indiana, United States
Smithereens' music holds up well MIKE REDMOND Indianapolis Star 04 May 1995
LET US turn now to the book of wise-sounding-but-frequently-unsupportable rock and roll sayings, where we find:
o "They were just too good to be superstars."
Actually, that one kind of applies to the Smithereens - as good a rock and roll band as America has produced in the last 15 years, and one that has never quite achieved the acclaim it is due.
(This is the place where we politely point out that you can make amends by going to Sports Live! Friday night and acclaiming them while they play there. You're welcome.)
As a quick look at whatever's on MTV this afternoon will demonstrate, the Smithereens are disqualified from wild popularity by songs that combine the jauntiness and melodic sense of classic '60s three-minute pop with the dark edge of later- vintage rock and roll, laced frequently with intelligence and wit.
Much of it is gathered on the "Blown to Smithereens" disc, a greatest-hits compilation released on Capitol as the band was being dropped by the label (and signed, almost immediately, to RCA). It is the disc upon which the tour is based, and unlike much of the music of the mid- and late 1980s, it is still good stuff.
"The thing that I'm getting on this tour is that people are perceiving the tunes as being as valid today as they were when they were first recorded and released," said singer-writer Pat DiNizio.
"It's not an oldies tour; it just happens we're out promoting this greatest- hits record.
"Certainly the approach that we take towards playing the tunes every night on stage is one where we feel like this could be the last time we play the tunes. We play them all-out, flat-out, every night. We don't go through the motions in any way, or mess with the arrangements in any way. We play faithful recreations of the album versions of the tunes.
What you have is rock and roll for grownups - DiNizio's smart lyrics and hummable melodies powered by Dennis Diken's drums, Jim Babjak's guitar and Mike Mesaros' bass.
"I think the work that the band has been doing, the writing that I've been doing, is more timely than it ever was and I think certainly more valid, coming from an adult perspective," DiNizio said. "Hopefully the themes I'm writing about are the concerns of adults. I always thought I was writing for adults and not teenyboppers.
"That's not who I'm writing for. I'm writing for adults . . . of all ages. You can have an adult sensibility when you're 12 or 13."
DiNizio credits two milestones with shaping his point of view: The Smithereens getting signed to a major label at a relatively advanced age, and the birth of his daughter about 14 months ago.
"The fact remains I was already 30 by the time we got our first record deal. I was dealing with a different set of sensibilities," he said. "It's `Let's just get on with our lives and deal with the hand we've been dealt.'
"In fact, I think starting a family, being married, has not taken the edge off my work. I think it's given it more edge. I'm more fiercely protective about what I have than I ever was before about anything. My work has taken on a different sort of edge to it, a more real quality to it."
Copyright 1995 - Indianapolis Star - All Rights Reverved
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