Friday’s scheduled show time came and went. Twenty-one minutes later, the crowd was getting restless.
“Smokey! Smokey!” chanted the fans.
Management at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown looked worried. Your correspondent contemplated sprinting home to fetch his ukulele.
Fortunately for all concerned, the curtains finally parted to reveal two shapely dancers, an eight-piece band and chorus and, finally … Smokey Robinson.
He got a standing ovation just for showing up. Hey, why not? The man’s got more hits than Derek Jeter.
Robinson quickly earned another standing Ooo, for Ooo Baby Baby. His performance dripped with so much emotion, fans should have been given towels.
The 90-minute concert packed plenty of sing-alongs. Everyone knows Robinson’s songs, which he began churning out as a teenager at Motown Records, first with The Miracles, and later as a solo artist.
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They have landed him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and won him a National Medal of Art and Kennedy Center honors.
You Really Got a Hold on Me was covered by the Beatles. Linda Ronstadt recorded great interpretations of Ooo Baby Baby and Tracks of My Tears. Stevie Wonder scored with Tears of a Clown, co-written with Robinson (who did a killer impersonation of his old friend during the show).
Robinson tossed in a s-m-o-o-t-h cover, too, of Fly Me to the Moon, a signature hit for Frank Sinatra. The rest of the night was pure Smokey:
I Second That Emotion. The Way You Do the Things You Do. Get Ready. My Girl. Just to See Her.
Smokey Robinson may be the all-time king of make-out music. Dressed in brown leather pants, a silk blazer and an open-necked shirt, the 74-year-old legend danced like a young stud released from a Soul Train time capsule.
He shimmied and he shaked with his dancers. When they paused to catch their breaths, Robinson proceeded to make out with himself.
(Cut to grandkids: “Ewww … Grandpa!“)
One or two more buttery ballads, and your stolid reporter would have proposed to his chair.
Bantering easily with the crowd, Robinson reminisced about playing five shows a day with the Temptations, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and, of course, the Miracles. Back then, he said, you got in “for a buck and a half” — and that included a movie.
“We don’t do that anymore!” Robinson said.
Saving the best for last, he invited a couple of lady fans onstage to help him lead a “Feel-Good Contest,” pitting each half of the audience against each other in a sing-along of Cruisin’.
“I’m at the point of my life where I’m having the time of my life,” Robinson proclaimed.
As with the opening curtain — better late than never.
