“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Those words, often attributed to Dr. Seuss, were spoken from the stage by the Radiators’ singer and guitarist Dave Malone as the group took their final bows early Sunday morning at Tipitina’s.
Regardless of the provenance, the message was a fitting reminder of how precious the last 33 years and five months were in the lives of hundreds of hardcore fans of the New Orleans “funky rock” band. There were indeed tears mixed with beers as the final song (“Screwloose”) was played out from stage of the band’s favorite venue.
The group could have easily booked their last shows at a bigger place and they definitely could have charged a lot more for admission given the rabid following that they have earned through a third of a century of dedicated touring. But they wanted to go out in style on the same stage where they have celebrated every significant milestone since the mid-1980s when they first burst onto the national consciousness with the hit single, “Like Dreamers Do.”
That song was the last tune of the regular set preceding an extra long encore that also featured three gems from the early days—“Salty Jane,” “Confidential,” and “Cannibal Girls.” Though speculation was rampant and betting pools were organized (I personally thought they would end with Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released,” since it has figured prominently in many other momentous shows).
Readers who are not Fishheads, and if you got this far then you might just be a closet case, may wonder about all the discussion about song selection. This is a band with a “book” of over 1600 songs. The average rock band can barely remember 100 songs. The Radiators are also legendary for never playing the same set twice. Many of their songs have emotional resonance for the fans—so what they play is often as important as how they play it.
Thursday’s acoustic show was the only night that featured a significant number of cover songs. Dave Malone sang sweetly on Tim Hardin’s “If I Were a Carpenter” and belted the Beatles’ “Hide Your Love Away,” complete with a raucous singalong from the weekend’s smallest, but most enthusiastic crowd. All three shows were ostensibly sold out, but moments before they hit the stage on Thursday, people were giving away their extra tickets.
The encores Thursday night set the stage for the emotional outpouring that would come on the weekend. They played the blues standard “Goodnight Irene” followed by a medley of “Life Ain’t Nothin’ But A Party” and “Lost What They Had.” The final song’s lyric still resonates—“They got what they wanted, people, but they lost what they had.”
Friday night the energy was cresting outside of Tipitina’s an hour before the band hit the stage. The diehards who must be up front on the rail waited eagerly for the doors to open. When they did, the line surged forward as fans jockeyed for position.
The first set featured favorites from the earliest days of the band including “If Your Heart Ain’t In It,” the iconic 12-minute epic, “# 2 Pencil” and the title song of their third and final album during their major label heyday, “Total Evaporation.”
Among all the songs that the speculators were sure would be played was “He Ain’t Give You None.” This lesser-known gem from the pen of Van Morrison was the first song the quintet ever played together in January of 1978. It was the first encore Friday night followed by another of the group’s classic medleys—Little Feat’s “Dixie Chicken” led straight into an epic jam that concluded with the whole crowd singing along to “Goin’ Down the Road and Feelin’ Bad.”
Curiously, given that Friday night was being billed as The Radiators and Friends, no one joined them on stage. I did see the guitarist Brint Anderson of George Porter Jr’s Runnin’ Pardners backstage and he indicated that he intended to sit in. However he never appeared.
Saturday night was one of the most densely packed shows I have ever witnessed at Tipitina’s. There was a sense of the history being made and a palpable rising energy pervaded the place. Even the ever-stolid door staff, bartenders and merch sales peeps knew they were in a special place.
The first song was “My Last Getaway” and the resonance of the line, “and it’s gonna be so fine” was in everybody’s mind as we lustily sang along. Lead guitarist Camile Boudoin added curlicue filigrees around every telling lyric even mimicking a reed instrument as Malone added emphasis to the words, “my brain is wailing just like a jazzman’s sax.”
Back in 1985, the band played a show at the Dream Palace that fans dubbed “the Night of Impossible Surprises” because of the unusual songs that were played. So we were expecting at least a few surprises and we certainly got several including the bittersweet ode “March on Down to Valentine.” Seeking meaning is part of the human condition— “oh my brother, why are we fighting this war?” “Let the rag be our flag, let the cup and the cross entwine.” Feel free to speculate.
The first set ended with another epic song from the earliest days of the band. Smiles abounded during “Red Dress” as the crowd joined in on the chorus—“tight like that.” Then it was out into the streets as 800 soaked and hearty souls passed through the door and flooded the neutral ground giddy with the thought of one last set.
Though there was a dearth of cover songs during the last two nights, Roger and Gypsies’ classic New Orleans instrumental, “Pass the Hatchet” has been beloved since the earliest days of the band. It popped up early in the last set complete with the Fishhead favorite lyrical interlude, “I don’t wanna grow up; it makes me wanna throw up.”
By the time they tore through “Light Up My Pipe, “Papaya,” and “Boomerang,” the end was in sight. Over the course of the last six months of the band’s performances, since the leader and principal songwriter Ed Volker announced his retirement, they have generally only played two-song encores and have mostly stuck close to the scheduled set times.
But for the last night, they kept playing well after 2 AM. But, from the first notes of “Screwloose” we knew it was over. They could have played something pithy, meaningful or profound. But truth be told and lyrics that might indicate otherwise be damned—this is a party band and “life ain’t nothing but a party” has been part of the credo since day one. So we sang along one last time—“Every time I phone ya, you’re deep in catatonia, baby, I’m a greasy pig trying to work your screw loose.”
