Chris Isaak @ Wolf Trap

Chris Isaak & Silvertone
Wolf Trap, Vienna, Va.
Aug. 24, 2005

Just about everything bought, sold, watched or consumed has an official sponsor or affiliation. If Wal-Mart can be the exclusive distributor of Garth Brooks, then it's high time that somebody elected Chris Isaak and Silvertone the Official Band of Summer.

If such a title existed (and believe me, it's only a matter of time), who would the competition be?

Jimmy Buffett? Yeah, I like Buffett -- up until about 1979. Some of my friends are even Parrotheads. But a co-worker put it best when he said that Buffett is for people who think they're still in college.

The Beach Boys? Puh-leeeze. They should have hung up their Hawaiian shirts when Carl Wilson died and took the last of the sun-drenched harmonies with him. It's sad watching one of the great bands in the history of American music limp along with one original member, Mike Love. Come to think of it, they should have quit back in the '80s when they started using John Stamos on drums.

Isaak is too aw-shucks and boy-next-door to push himself for this position, but his entire platform was on display Wednesday night. Fear not, dear readers. As your eyes and ears, I'm going to lay out his, and the band's, candidacy for you. Here are their qualifications:

1. Star quality. Isaak is the package you'd put together if you were assembling an entertainer. He took the stage at Wolf Trap decked out in a royal blue, rhinestone-studded Nudie suit and toting a fat, white, Gibson electric guitar, suggesting that he's equal parts raw rockabilly and Vegas showman. With his Orbisonesque voice, Ricky Nelson's teen-idol looks and Webb Pierce's sartorial sense, he's a star that the girls and boys can look up to; Porter Wagoner as a stone-cold ladykiller.

2. The chops. This band is road-tested, and has been playing together for about 20 years. Along with Isaak, Scott Plunkett (keyboards), Rafael Padilla (percussion), Rowland Salley (bass), Hershel Yatovitz (guitar) and Kenny Dale Johnson (drums) are locked in tight, and would be as comfortable playing behind chicken wire as in front of 20,000 people. Perhaps it's because, as Isaak suggested, when they were starting out they weren't even big enough to play sandwich shops so they cut their teeth on the "urinal circuit."

3. The showmanship. By the fourth song, a cover of The Rivieras' "California Sun," Johnson had come out front to sing and Isaak was back on the drum kit. By the fifth song, "Goin' Nowhere," Isaak was making the first of his two trips into the crowd, playing guitar and singing the whole time he worked the room.

4. The respect for their roots. Isaak and the band also covered James Brown's "I'll Go Crazy," Buddy Holly's "Blue Days, Black Nights," Roy Orbison's "Only the Lonely" and the Delmore Brothers' "Blues Stay Away From Me," which has made its way through roots and rockabilly circles over the years. Plus they led into "Notice the Ring" with a snippet of "Beyond the Sea," which was written by a Frenchman but made famous in this country (and for the purpose of this candidate) by Bobby Darin.

5. The mix of hits and deep-album tracks. Who wants to go to a show and hear only the hits? Reward me for my dedication. Make me work a little to compile a setlist. The crowd at Wolf Trap got a steady diet of the heavy hitters, such as "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing," "Let Me Down Easy," "Somebody's Crying" and, of course, the 1989 breakout hit "Wicked Game." But it also got treated to the acoustic "Western Stars" from Isaak's 1985 debut album.

6. The surprises. Early in the show, the band pulled out a cover of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me." Any band worth considering for Official Band of Summer needs to know intuitively that a sugary, candy-coated slice of power pop goes down smooth on an August night. This really should convince any voters who were still on the fence.

7. The fun. Isn't that what music is all about anyway? When Isaak came back out for the encore, he was dressed in his now-famous mirror suit, which made him the first cool disco ball in the history of western civilization. As Isaak swiveled his hips during "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing," reflecting rays of light throughout the amphitheater, about a dozen young ladies invited up from the audience danced behind him. He looked like a man fulfilled and thrilled to be living out his rock and roll dreams. What could be more fun than that?

I hereby nominate Chris Isaak and Silvertone for Official Band of Summer. Anybody care to second that motion?

Setlist
1. American Boy
2. San Francisco Days
3. Let Me Down Easy
4. California Sun
5. Goin' Nowhere
6. Somebody's Crying
7. Wicked Game
8. One Day
9. I Want You to Want Me
10. Western Stars
11. Two Hearts
12. Return to Me
13. I'll Go Crazy
14. Can't Do a Thing (To Stop Me)
15. Blue Days, Black Nights
16. Only the Lonely
17. Please
18. Always Got Tonight
19. Beyond the Sea/Notice the Ring
Encore
20. Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing
21. Blues Stay Away From Me
22. Forever Blue