 Back In Time
After a gorgeous sunny drive Matt and I arrived at WSU for the Mom’s Weekend Concert featuring Huey Lewis and the News. Matt didn’t find out until the day before that we were going, so we sat way up in the nosebleeds. However it wasn’t that bad because this way I didn’t have to deal with dancing cougars, and I don’t mean the kitty cats. The Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum was 90% full of moms, dads, students, one ginger kid, oh and me. I thought I wasn’t that familiar with Huey Lewis but oh man let me tell ya I knew all the hits… including both of his Back to Future songs (okay really I only knew 1 – “The Power of Love”). As Matt said “Yeah we went back to the future… we went back to 1985.” When the band was getting ready to take the stage the lights went red and started to flash with the sound of a heart beat and sure enough Huey and the News opened up with “The Heart of Rock N Roll.” At first the crowd was a little nervous not yet quite out of their shell, during “I want a New Drug” they started to clap but after about the 5th song the floor finally stood up. The crowd was the clappiest crowd I have ever seen too, most of the time when a crowd claps it ends like 30 seconds in… not the case at this show – I even clapped almost an entire song. As far as Huey’s fans, leading the crowd was one mom and her son who had custom t-shirts that read “We Love Huey Lewis!” The whole time from start to finish they were dancing, clapping hands, and just having the time of their life – good for them!
 But back to Huey… the ladies sure loved him, by the 9th song he had gotten three roses
(2 red, 1 white), a lot of hoots and hollers, and handshakes. He was a ladies’ man and a great fit for Mom’s weekend. One of the cool things about the show was how intimate Huey got with the crowd, he would sit down on amps while he was singing and grab hands – he made it seem relaxed (no big ego). The band or shall I say “The News” was all top notch talented musicians. The horn section sounded perfect with saxophones and a trumpet, it was cool they all moved the same way together… it looked sharp. There were nine men on stage and not a single thing sounded off, it was a great performance. Towards the end of the set, we were in for a treat. Huey and the News did an a capella set including the song “It’s Alright.” That was really neat to see because you don’t get much of that these days. For being a college coliseum the lights were really cool to it made seem like we were at an arena show, they even had to screens on each side of the stage . At one point during his set he mentioned “I made this song for a good friend of mine about six months… okay a year and a half ago, the song is called Pineapple Express.” I had no idea that Huey wrote that song and I even saw the movie. Does Huey ride the Pineapple Express?
After going through “Happy to Be Stuck With You,” “Hip to Be Square,” “The Power of Love,” “Back In Time,” “But It’s Alright,” and many more hits he ended his set and said good bye. The Cougars and Mom’s weren’t ready to say good-bye for night, all the sudden the black coliseum was lit up by people’s cell-phones and as Matty said “It looks like a bunch of fireflies.” I think I only counted three lighters, some Mom’s keep it old school. Huey and the News came back out for an encore and by the end of the night put on a wonderful show that not only rocked and was a lot fun but made the Cougars wild both the animals and the well ya know. Click Here for photos from the show.
Andrea@checkitoutmusic.com |
