Still, if the tristate area wasn’t known for the snark and questionable commentary its citizens are responsible for, Southside Johnny’s less-than-sold-out crowd at the Hard Rock Event Center would think he had been intoxicated off his ass.
New Jersey isn’t the only thing Johnny has in common with Bruce Springsteen, either. Like the Boss, he never plays the same exact set every night, and he gives fans 15 minutes past the scheduled start time to get beers, t-shirts, and into their seats. Kind of an act of consideration before he starts making fun of certain said fans closer to the stage.
15 minutes after showtime, in true Springsteen form, Southside Johnny—clad in a burgundy and white button, blue jeans, red Chuck Taylors, and Ray Ban sunglasses—directed his seven-piece, The Asbury Jukes to open with his jangly, yet rollicking cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Happy,” almost a year after the mighty Keith Richards himself played it live about 15 minutes away from the Hard Rock. Later, he dusted off a very altered version of “Save Me,” originally penned by Steven Van Zandt. “I fucked that up really bad,” Johnny admitted at the end, after keyboardist and musical director Jeff Kazee gave him the “wrong signal” during a portion of the song.
He dove into a jumbled, but about average set filled with Tracks-level Springsteen covers (“All The Way Home,” “Talk To Me”), a few of his own (“Looking For A Good Time”), and all the smartassery you could ever want in a septuagenarian Jersey boy. Whether it was a talk about how Hollywood, FL doesn’t hold a candle to the star-studded district inside the City of Angels, or about how guys take their wives for granted a lot more than they should, there was always something ridiculous to poke fun at, especially in the crowd.
“Which one of these women are with you? All three of them? God damn, boy. No wonder you needed a rotary shoulder replacement. Good thing I can’t see the other cast.”
“I could move down here…but it’s that June-July thing.”
“We could make it in a mobile home somewhere. That’s all I can afford right now, on route 27, in Belle Chase or…what’s that other town?” He would ponder and listen to called out suggestions before giving up and playing a closing harmonica solo on “All The Way Home.”
The larger scale of the Tampa Bay live music scene has been completely Jersey’ed out this year. Bon Jovi and Frankie Valli have both stopped by, and Springsteen announced that he’s kicking off his elitists-only 2023 world tour at Amalie Arena. All we need now to make it even more eclectic is for My Chemical Romance to bring its reunion tour to Tampa at some point. After all, Gerard Way is from Jersey too, you know.
UPDATED 09/17/22 4:55 p.m. Updated because the band was not drinking at the Hard Rock Pool.
This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2022.