Cloaca Melodia

Tradewinds, Sea Bright, NJ.... sorry, I haven't yet written about this show... add your own comments if you were also there!    

Count Basie Theater, Red Bank, NJ..... It was the WHTG Snow Ball, the second annual holiday concert out of a five-year run for the event. Everybody was terrific on stage. CIV was nuts. TMBG and Del Amitri did their usual high-quality sets. Deep Blue Something was in the top 40 at the time of the show with "Breakfast at Tiffany's"--it was at #11 on the Billboard chart right then and would peak at #5 five weeks later. I don't really recall much of Rusty and solution a.d., but Whirling Dervishes got the show off to a great start with a set including their cover of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch." I wore my paisley tux jacket (see below) and I think I introduced Del Amitri on stage.   the front cover of the official program for the show me in my paisley tux jacket from a 1998 WHTG event being fed by WHTG's Chris Rake

Irving Plaza, New York, NY...... Although Gin Blossoms would go on to having four top 40 hits in the U.S. including one top 10 placement while Del Amitri would only have three top 40 hits (including one in the top 10), when this concert took place Del Amitri was the bigger band and thus the Scottish group was the headliner. Del Amitri released their brilliant debut album in 1985 but it came and went with little notice in the U.S. outside of some college radio stations (including my WICB, at Ithaca College). I loved that release but when no follow-up album came out for years, I figured sadly that they were a one-and-done band. But then, they had a new album in 1989 on a new record label and lo and behold--the band scored their first top 40 hit in "Kiss This Thing Goodbye." It took the label two tries to make it a hit, releasing the song as the album's first single without success but then re-releasing it in the summer of 1990 and taking it to the lower depths of the top 40...