LIVE AT THE NEWCASTLE OPERA HOUSE 2002
SECRET RECORDS (UK) 2008

- Take It Inside
- Baby Don’t Lie
- All Night Long
- Long Distance
- Gin Soaked Boy
- Without Love
- No Easy Way Down
- Coming Back
- All I Needed Was You
- Living With The Blues
- Help Me
- Cadillac Jack’s Number One Son
- This Time Baby’s Gone For Good
- Some Things Just Don’t Change
- I Won’t Sing
- Pipeline
- Sleepwalk
- I Don’t Want To Go Home
- I Don’t Want To Go Home (Reprise)
- Passion Street
- This Time Is For Real
- Hearts Of Stone

*** digitally remastered

This fine LIVE CD release in the UK has been a bit overshadowed by the BIG (Band) GRAPEFRUIT MOON. And that is right and that is a good thing – because Johnny’s and Richie’s labor of love to the great American art of Big-Band Jazz and the great American songbook of Tom Waits deserves all the attention and focus it can get.

FROM SOUTHSIDE TO TYNESIDE is indeed no new material at all. This is the CD version of a show at the Newcastle Opera House 2002, a show which has been captured on video and released as one of the very few full shows of SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY AND THE ASBURY JUKES on DVD. LIVE AT THE OPERA HOUSE.

While the DVD has been released in Europe by SECRET FILMS in London, as early as 2003, fans and critics had to wait for the CD another six years. That probably does have commercial and contractual reasons which are beyond my limited knowledge. SECRET RECORDS is the independent record label behind this live album. Again, this is “just” an European release, but in the times of online-shopping on the internet, availability on other markets is not an issue as it probably would have been just 10 years ago. AMAZON and most other online record outlets carry the album and there is absolutely no reason not to buy it (unless you ripped the DVD on audio CD – then you HAVE to buy it, just to legitimize your copy… go figure!

2002 marked a major year for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. The first major tour in the UK since almost ten years has been in 2001 – a return to the shores they’ve been sailing should prove their still solid following and success on a market where competition is tough. The second album released on Johnny’s own label after his record comeback with MESSIN’ WITH THE BLUES, marked the return to the classic sound of the JUKES with “GOING TO JUKESVILLE” did just come out (and is featured on this live album). The JUKES basically had to prove that they still can live up to their own high limits – which they did!

Steve Horowitz did a review on POPMATTERS.COM which gets to the point:

Close your eyes and listen to this live double-disc set and you’ll swear it’s still 1970-something. (…) You’ll feel the sweat of the person next to you and hear her pounding heart. You’ll smell the stale beer spilled on the floor and thirst for a fresh one. Goddamn, it feels good to go back.

Johnny sings some old songs and belts out new ones with equal verve and passion. It doesn’t always matter what the words are. He croons out obscure classics by Tom Waits, Carole King/Gerry Goffin, and the Boss mixed with those by Little Steven and himself with equal delight. The feeling’s always the same one. It’s you and me against the world, baby. Hold on tight. Life is a hard road. There are lots of bumps, twists and turns. We might never get to where we are going, but it’s one helluva journey.

The repartee between Johnny and the crowd reveals the intimacy they feel for each other. He addresses them as partners, telling them that they don’t want to hear the slow songs when the groove is tight or cursing them to make a point. And people in the audience aren’t shy about shouting requests or even asking what he’s drinking. This isn’t heckling. It’s the kind of response made between friends that care for each other and show that they are paying attention.

What Steve describes in his review is the essence of the record – indeed, it’s the essence of the JUKES: authentically artists who live it and give their all on the stage, every night. That night, in Newcastle’s old Victorian Operahouse, or in any other night during that year’s European tour, SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY and the ASBURY JUKES renewed their connection with their audience, found a home-away-from-home. It is a friendship which is a give and take on both ends, which lives out of the trust that “THIS (and any other time with the JUKES) TIME THEY’RE FOR REAL!”

It’s six years since that tour concluded in Amsterdam’s Melkweg with another major storm. SOUTHSIDE JOHNNY and the ASBURY JUKES might have never had and – managed to keep it – a more solid and enthusiastic support in Europe since what they have managed to establish in 2002. They are receiving it and paying back ever since, every time, every year!

Steve concludes his review:

There’s a bitter irony in the fact that this album of pure American music is only available in the United States as an import and performed in front of an enthusiastic British audience. In an age where UK imports like Amy Winehouse and Duffy sing retro soul to enthusiastic young American audiences, veterans like Johnny and the Jukes find salvation across the sea. Oh, these guys are still heroes in Jersey and nearby environs, but the rest of the country couldn’t seem to care less about them. (…) As Johnny sings twice here, once with the Jukes and once by himself, he may not want to go home (re: “I Don’t Want to Go Home”), but home is where the heart is.

In this case, it’s in England.

I heartfully recommend SOUTHSIDE TO TYNESIDE. It’s an authentically document, it’s a great show! It’s well produced (digitally remastered)! It sounds great and it’s playing on my car-stereo! The DVD doesn’t.

Related Posts:

• July 5, 2008 -- Live In Boston
• July 5, 2000 -- Live At The Paradise Theater
• July 5, 1996 -- Spittin’ Fire
• July 5, 1995 -- Jukes Live at the Bottom Line
• July 5, 1980 -- Reach Up And Touch The Sky (live)