- The Hooters performed to a nearly sold-out crowd Friday at Univest Performance Center in Quakertown
- The group played a 21-song, hour-and-50-minute set of hits, new songs and deep cuts
- The concert showed The Hooters' music still connects, almost 40 years since its peak hit years
QUAKERTOWN, Pa. — When The Hooters opened its show at Univest Performance Center with "I'm Alive," the opening cut from its 2007 album "Time Stand Still," it was a declaration.
Nearly 35 years after its last charting hit, almost 40 years since a peak that saw it put six hits on the Billboard charts and open the legendary Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia ska-rockers still are, indeed, alive — and very well.
But while resoundingly answering that question, The Hooters' concert raised an even bigger question: Why the band wasn't bigger and isn't better known?
"Let's get this party started."The Hooters keyboard player Rob Hyman to Quakertown audience
In a show of 21 songs in an hour and 50 minutes, The Hooters played songs spanning its career — including all its hits and songs from its just-released album "Rocking and Swing."
Not only did they perform well and with intensity, they still sounded fresh and vital.
On that opening song, singer/multi-instrumentalist Eric Bazilian — he played no fewer than six instruments through the night — ripped a guitar solo that left the keyboardist's song-closing statement of "We are alive" unnecessary.
By the third song, "Engine 999" — the 1987 deep cut revived on the new disc; Hyman introduced it as "a new old one" — most of the nearly sold-out audience was dancing.
And when the band offered as the fourth song its highest-charting hit, 1986's "Day By Day," the first notes sent a rush through the crowd.
"Let's get this party started," Hyman said — and they did. The crowd was so in tune with them that when they sang the lyric, "Show me some appreciation," the audience did — loudly.
The group also clearly was invested — to end the song, Bazilian jumped four times, and Hyman said, "My, my, this looks like a party. Great to be back in Quakertown." (It was the third time the band has played the Univest Center's Sounds of Summer series).
Hits, new songs, deep cuts
In all, The Hooters played five of the eight songs from its new album, which returns the band to its ska roots.
The disc's cover of The Rolling Stones' "Connection" was OK, but the band seemed to be having fun, with Bazilian on sax. Same with "Brother Don't You Walk Away," with Hyman described as an "old one we rediscovered."
"Pete Rose" — a song that setlist. FM says was debuted in 1981 at the former Allentown club Nikko's — was very, very ska, with Bazilian adding sax.
"Oh, baby — Friday night."The Hooters' Rob Hyman commenting on Quakertown audience's reaction
But it clearly was the older songs and hits that resonated most with the largely more mature audience. "South Ferry Road" from the group's self-titled first album was one of those songs that sounded fresh, and a seven-minute version of "500 Miles" from 1989's "Zig Zag" was much more typical Hooters ska.
That song and a six-minute version of 1987's "Johnny B" were clearly the concert's centerpieces, and when the band led the audience in sing-alongs, it seemed natural, not hokey.
That started a run of hits: fog filled the stage, with green light creating the atmosphere for the sufficiently spooky, seven-minute — and very good —"All You Zombies." "Boys Will Be Boys" from 1993 was classic Hooters sound, as were "Karla with a K" and "Twenty-Five Hours a Day," which stretched to seven minutes with an extended solo from drummer David Uosikkinen.
The main set speeded to a close with an absolutely joyous 1987 minor hit "Satellite," with Bazilian playing the hooter instrument from which the band got its name, and a five-minute version of its second-biggest hit, 1985's "And We Danced," to close the main set.
The audience's huge cheers prompted Hyman to remark, "Oh, baby — Friday night."
A local connection, "our people"
The encore opened with a song Hyman said has "a special connection to Quakertown and this area" — the 1986 Top 40 hit "Where Do the Children Go." He said the song is based on "a series of teen suicides in 1983-84."
"It was written before we had kids of our own," he said. "Now that we do, it has a new meaning." And it was wonderfully, and sensitively, performed as the night turned cooler — ending with a keyboard-and-mandolin coda.
After "Why Don't You Call Me Back," the single from the new disc, the show closed with a couple of Hooter's-related songs: "One of Us," the 1995 No. 1 Grammy-nominated hit Bazilian wrote for Joan Osborne, and "Time After Time," the 1984 No. 1 hit Hyman wrote with Cyndi Lauper.
The latter was played as a faster, more rock version.
"It's good to be here. 'Cause you are our people and we are your band.'"The Hooters' Eric Bazilian to Quakertown audience
Bazilian said both actually were Hooters' songs, then broadened that to include the audience, as well.
"It's good to be here," he said. "'Cause you are our people and we are your band."
It clearly was a true statement. All these years later, it's a puzzle why more people haven't discovered The Hooters.
And the lyrics to that opening song, "I'm Alive," got it right: "I'm looking older now than when I was a kid/But I'm feeling younger now than I ever did."
