Before I get to the Bangles, let me just share an interesting discovery I made Friday night, while walking from the Atlantic City Hilton to the Showboat House of Blues, where the Bangles were performing. Avid readers of T&R (as the kids call it), will no doubt be aware of the many depressing things Atlantic City has to offer, from belligerent amputees to Eddie Money singing on a beach. But, as it turns out, the true depression in Atlantic City can only be achieved when you walk the entire length of the boardwalk at night in the middle of January. Nearly every store was shut down, with the exception of the "Never Closed" Bob's Gyros and competing sleazy-looking massage parlors offering $20 and $32 full body massage parlors. Yet, music still blares out, both from casinos (like Bally's Wild Wild West's New Country mix) and from a section of shops just down the way from Bally's, where, right on cue, "Theme from 'A Summer Place'" blared out as I walked past.
Anybody in Atlantic City in January is inside the casinos, hunkered down among the slot machines or gorging on a comped buffet. And there isn't much movement from casino; you pick your spot and hope for the best. Should the worst happen to hit, you must decide to either ride it out or venture out onto the boardwalk and faced those harsh winds. And judging by the dead-eyed glares that met me when I walked into a few of the casinos, there was a lot of riding out going on Friday night.
Yes, if you find yourself traveling to Atlantic City in the dead of winter, it is clear that you either have a severe gambling problem or there is something much, much worse wrong with you.
I, of course, am among the latter.
***
With a Ticketmaster gift card and the knowledge that I'd get at least two-thirds of my bus fare back, I made the decision to board an Academy bus at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and head out to see the Bangles at the Showboat House of Blues. Much like my love for Huey Lewis and the News, my love for the Bangles is genuine and nonironic. Of course, I find the Bangles to be much better-looking than Huey Lewis and any members--past, present, and future--of the News, so that may have played a part in my decision to go to Atlantic City on the weekend that winter finally got its act together. Or I may just be crazy. Feel free to come to the conclusion that makes you most comfortable.
But I have been attracted to a lot of female musicians in my time, so it's not just the fact that I was gonna have a chance to see Susanna Hoffs that put me in Atlantic City. The Bangles also don't do too many shows these days, particularly on the east coast (though rumors of a summer 2007 tour have popped up).I saw them a bunch of years ago at Irving Plaza, which, as it turns out, was probably the only time I'll ever see the classic Bangles lineup, since bassist Michael Steele retired from the band a few years ago. Lest you think I spend a lot of time thinking about the Bangles, I learned of her retirement about three hours after I bought my ticket to the AC show. I don't want to give the impression that I sit in my apartment and pore through the Bangles' web site. However, I have spent the last two days doing just that. And looking for a clip of "The Allnighter" on YouTube. I've said too much.
Anyway, the chance to see a rare Bangles show and to hear the Bangles songs I enjoyed in my youth (and, OK, yeah, to see Susanna Hoffs...and the equally-pleasing- to-my-eye Vicki Peterson) compelled me to get on that bus, on which the bus driver and the man in the front seat engaged in a two-hour-long, loud, rambling dialogue (much thanks to the music of Dave Edmunds and Eddie Floyd, which drowned out a good deal of that). I wound up getting $22 of my $31 bus fare back from the Atlantic City Hilton, plus a $5 food coupon. So I stepped foot in Atlantic City down only $4. I could get used to being elderly.
After the aforementioned most depressing walk ever, I headed into the Showboat right on time, something I am always grateful for when I'm in Atlantic City. The show began with a brief set from the horribly named Fran Smith Jr. and the Ten-Cent Millionaires. Here's something I just discovered five minutes ago: Fran Smith Jr. currently plays bass for the Hooters, who his biography says have ridden the fame of "And We Danced" to become "one of the hottest bands in Europe." Really? C'mon, Europe. Get your act together.
(Oooh...here's something else very entertaining from his bio [which, I should mention is much more enjoyable than his set was]:
"From his own recording studio he has produced many successful projects. His clients run the gamut from friends like Joe Piscapo and Flo and Eddy of The Turtles to local artists and bands."
I'm willing to let it slide that he misspells the names of two of the three friends he mentions, but I do feel obligated to note that that may be the saddest gamut I've ever seen.)
There was a 45-minute wait between the end of the Millionaires' set and the start of the Bangles', and that was filled with 45 minutes of '80s music over the PA. The most entertaining part of that lengthy intermission was watching the steely, leather-jacketed facade of the gentleman to my left crumble two notes into Katrina and the Waves' "Walkin' on Sunshine," when his head started reflexively bobbing to the peppy beat. I was also trying to gauge how many guys came just to see if Susanna Hoffs still held up. I put the number at roughly two-thirds.
And many of those two-thirds angled up to my spot stage left seconds after the Bangles came out swinging with "Hazy Shade of Winter" (one of the Top 10 cover songs of all time). Security spent a good part of the first three songs picking out those snapping photos, including the guy behind me who was so dead set on getting that Susanna photo that the flashlight shining directly in his face barely even phased him. And even after the first warning, he kept at it. He gave up after being spotted again, though. As my own attempts to smuggle a camera in were thwarted, I can offer you no photographic proof that Susanna Hoffs is still hot. But she is. You'll have to just trust me.
You will also have to trust me that it was a really good show. All the hits were polished up and presented just as good as they sounded on my 45s in the '80s, and the newer songs from their last record, "Doll Revolution," fit in just fine. Particular highlights were "Ride the Ride" (which segued into the '80s classic "In Your Room"), the Elvis Costello-penned "Tear Off Your Own Head (It's a Doll Revolution"), and my favorite song of the first half of the show, "Rain Song," originally cowritten by Vicki Peterson when she was in the Continental Drifters.
And then there were the hits of the '80s--"Manic Monday," "Eternal Flame" (the final encore), "If She Knew What She Wants" (kind of a hit), and, of course, the main-set closer, "Walk Like An Egyptian." I guess I was about nine years old when that song came out, as it was released in 1986, the Year of Great Things (Mets win the World Series, Giants march to the Super Bowl, Wrestlemania 2, my family gets cable), a year that may never be duplicated again. "Walk Like An Egyptian" was probably one of the first 45s I bought, compelled by that super-cool video. I can't really say why I liked--and still like--the song (other than its catchiness), but I do know that Susanna Hoffs's delivery of the following benign couplet still does something to me, even on a cold night in Atlantic City:
"If you wanna find all the cops,
They're hangin' out in the doughnut shops."
I don't know what it is about those lines, but I hear them and it brings me back to the Year of Great Things. And I feel a little better. About the past. About the present. And about going to Atlantic City in January to see a really good band.
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