The post office's credo may be that "neither rain, snow, sleet or hail will keep them from their appointed rounds", but I don't think that even postmen include food poisoning in that motto. This living room tour stop was rescheduled from an earlier date last winter when the hosts, Jim and Maggie, both came down with a terrible case of food poisoning the morning of the show. And as a special added bonus, one of the worst blizzards of the season dumped several inches of snow that afternoon ultimately guaranteeing that the show would not go on after all. Even Kevin Costner's ill-fated "The Postman" movie didn't have this many forebodings of doom.

This Friday evening, however, the gods of weather and food smiled down upon the couple and the rescheduled show went on without a hitch. Jim and Maggie are big Pat DiNizio and Smithereens fans. They were therefore well acquainted with the DiNizio/Smithereens music catalog and fed Pat requests all night long. Pat enthusiastically obliged by playing them. Jim told me that he became an immediate Smithereens fan, as many of us did, the first time he heard "Blood and Roses" blare out of his radio from local New York radio station WNEW-FM. This was obviously a special treat for him, his wife and the rest of the guests that evening.

As it turned out, both the hosts and Pat had their own special reasons for turning this show into a commemorative party. Pat had just turned forty-five the day before and Maggie and Jim had also celebrated their wedding anniversary on that same day. It became sort of a mutual anniversary and birthday celebration. Pat even jokingly referred to his birthday at one point by pointedly referring to the Jethro Tull tune "Too Old to Rock 'n Roll: Too Young To Die". Anyway, Pat certainly wasn't heading "over the hill" towards any "middle of the road" territory this evening. He rocked out with the best of them and played with great passion all night long.

Pat was seated with acoustic guitar in hand in the living room (naturally) in front of a homey fireplace and very close to a grand "Gone With the Wind" type staircase. Several members of the audience sat up high on the stairs in order to gain a birds-eye view of the festivities. The makeshift balcony in this home theater was not closed for this particular performance.

The hosts tried to throw Pat some musical curves. Pat gamely performed a request for a Jim Babjak tune, "Love Is Gone", but eventually balked at playing Jim's "White Castle Blues". As true-"blue" fans, Jim and Maggie requested one of the many aptly titled "blue" tunes from the Smithereens catalog - the now appropriately "bluesy" version of "Blues Before & After". Pat regaled the crowd by explaining that this title came from an old Stan Kenton instrumental of the same name. Earlier, Pat similarly explained that "Behind the Wall of Sleep"'s title was inspired by an H. P. Lovecraft tale, "Beyond the Wall of Sleep". He grinned when he said that titles are non-copyrightable and published titles were often the launching point for some of the band's biggest hits.

When asked what his favorite song was, Pat reflected a while and said that his songs were all "separate worlds" unto themselves making it hard for him to choose. When pressed, however, he chose one of his current favorites and played "Everything Changes" from the "God Save the Smithereens" album.

As befitting this folksy storyteller format, Pat spun several tales including how he envisioned "In a Lonely Place" as being sung with the original "Girl from Ipanema." That tune was the original inspiration for the song's melody, he said. Although the woman was asked to duet with Pat on "In a Lonely Place," this duet never came to fruition. That's how Pat eventually ended-up singing it with Suzanne Vega instead. Then there was the now legendary tale of how the Cannon films executive's wife happened by chance upon "Blood and Roses" on a tape and got him to use it on a movie soundtrack. This helped to launch the Smithereens' career. To give some historical perspective, Pat kidded that Cannon Films was the proud producer of such fine low-budget schlock films as "Deathwish 8".

The hosts asked Pat what the first song was that he ever wrote and he performed that song, "I Don't Want To Lose You" for them. DiNizio followed this up by asking them if they knew what the second song was that he wrote. He answered by playing "Elaine" for the crowd. Just when you thought you might almost get a chance to hear all of the Smithereens' tunes in chronological order, Pat broke into "124 MPH" and added a playful deep FM DJ voice during part of the chorus. In the midst of an impassioned folk rendition of Ozzy's "Paranoid", Pat whistled along with his strumming for another stylistic modification to this song that previously rocked in a former life.

The audience was clearly having a good time. One audience member especially got caught up in the moment. When Pat played the last tune of the evening, "A Girl Like You", (an anniversary song request from Maggie) he paused dramatically. This allowed one guy enough time to fill-in this sound of silence by screaming out the next line excitedly: "anywhere you are I'll run". This managed to catch Pat off guard and made him stop and laugh. Pat eventually forged ahead and then ended the song by thanking this excited fan for helping him out with the impromptu sing-a-long.

Some of the song performances were especially heartfelt including his ode to his daughter, "Liza", who he mentioned he'd be visiting the following day during another song written about her entitled "She's Got a Way". Among the many show highlights, I especially enjoyed a feverish "Blues Before and After", the jangly "Yesterday Girl" rendition and the seldom played "I Don't Want to Lose You".

Pat had announced earlier that this was probably going to be the last living room show of the tour and it was a fine farewell. As Pat tells it in an amusing anecdote, at one time he had already logged something like over 65,000 miles using a rental van. When he later returned the van to the rental agency, the exasperated clerk could say nothing about it because it was an "unlimited mileage" plan. Even if rental clerks were not entirely happy about the tour, fans I have spoken with were overwhelmingly appreciative that Pat had taken this extended road trip to their local neighborhoods, halls and living rooms. Pat once wrote that "a house is not a home" but grateful audiences certainly felt at home in his presence during these intimate living room shows "where I once shared my life with you".

Setlist:
Somewhere Down The Line
Only a Memory
In a Lonely Place
She's Got a Way
A World Apart
Everything Changes
Love Is Gone
Strangers When We Meet
Blood and Roses
Liza
Behind the Wall of Sleep
Paranoid
Blues Before & After
Yesterday Girl
I Don't Want To Lose You
Elaine
124 MPH
Drown In My Own Tears
I Believe
A Girl Like You

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