The best part about living in New York City is you never know what you are going to do from day to day. Sure you can plan stuff to do but it never seems to go as planned.A few months ago I was listening to a Joan Jett album and I even looked up to see when she was playing New York so I could go see her. She had played here the week before so I knew it would be a while until she came back from her tour. I kind of forgot about it until yesterday.
I was on the train reading the newspaper when I saw Joan Jett was playing a free concert on the pier at Hudson River park. Needless to say I went to the show. They have free concerts all summer see www.hudsonriverpark.org for more details. Joan was way better than I expected and she sounded great as did the Blackheart’s. I can’t wait until Joan plays a club date here again so I can go see her again. One of the best parts of the night was the opening bands. I am now hooked on a band called “The Dollyrots” www.thedollyrots.com
The band is a three piece unit with the lead singer Kelly handling the bass as if she was Gene Simmons at a Kiss concert. What was impressive was the vocals she provided besides the great bass playing. At first I thought this was at least a four person band because the sound was surrounding and very full.The rest of the band is Luis on guitar and Chris on drums. They sounded great and they played like they have been together for a long long time.
There was a slight rain and that was great as it cooled off the crowd. I think that they had to cut their set a little short as the rain was about to come down and Joan still had to take the stage. I have made a plan to see them when they come back to town.I had never heard of The Dollyrots before this and was surprised they had a hit rising in the charts called “Because I’m Awesome” which they played and it was sounding great with the same flow as the song has on the album.
I enjoyed the cover version of Melanie’s hit from the 1970′s “Brand New Key” which I haven’t been able to get out of my head all day now. As they were finishing their set I wandered over to the place they were selling their Cd’s at and bought the first two Dollyrots Cd’s. I couldn’t wait to get home to listen to them. Needless to say I am now a Dollyrots fan. This was my first time to Hudson River Park or I should say out on this pier. It seems like a great location as the backdrop of New Jersey and the sun going down made for a great evening.
For more pictures see my picassa album Joan Jett at Hudson River Park
Here is a video for the song “I Love Rock n Roll”
