If Peter Noone had been around in Colonial days, our little misunderstanding with King George might never have happened.
Noone would have cracked a few impish jokes about stamp taxes, followed by a bouncy set of music hall favorites, with British references casually replaced by local ones.
Before long, patriotic firebrands would be hoisting their tankards of ale to toast the mother country, singing in happy harmony like the crowd at Tuesday’s Herman’s Hermits show in the Mayo Performing Arts Center.
That’s in Morristown, as Noone– the “Herman” who helped the original Hermits sell millions of records during the ’60s–made sure to remind everyone.
“When we were small boys growing up, we dreamed…one day…Morristown, New Jersey,” Noone deadpanned, to roars from the audience.
“We used to tell all those other British invasion groups–you know, like the Zombies and the Kinks and the Honeycombs and the Stones and the Beatles–‘Hey, John! Paul! Guess where we’re going to play? The Mayo Performing Arts Center.’
“That was when no one thought that Herman’s Hermits and the words Performing Arts Center could be used in the same sentence.
“Then John said [pause]… ‘Who are you?'”
Slideshow photos of Herman’s Hermits by Kevin Coughlin
A native of Manchester, England, Noone rattled off anecdotes–real or imagined– about strolling to Starbucks, Panera Bread and the Exxon station, with nods to Parsippany, Newark, the Short Hills Mall, Route 287. For good measure, he threw in a chorus of Ferry Cross to Jersey, the song Gerry & The Pacemakers should have written.
Morristown was even better than he remembered it from his 2014 show, Noone noted, even if his audience had…matured a bit.
“They said, ‘This time in Morristown, forget selling CDs and t-shirts. This time, bring eight-tracks and cassettes. The demographic has changed. Do some country and western tunes.'”
To howls of laughter, the 69-year-old singer and actor launched into a sendup of Johnny Cash doing Ring of Fire. Later came hilarious impressions of Mick Jagger (“my dad”) and Perry Como.
The droll gags, catchy setlist and crackerjack Hermit impersonators all were familiar from his last visit, which I remembered as one of the most entertaining evenings I ever spent at MPAC.
Was this a fluke, I wondered at the time, with the same incredulity Noone expressed onstage.
Happily, it was not. You know a performer is good when the jokes still land on the second go-round.
Tuesday’s show was a perfect cure for the summertime blues, mixing guilty pop pleasures (I’m Into Something Good; Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter; A Must to Avoid; Dandy; Listen People; Leaning on a Lamp Post; Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat; Silhouettes; There’s A Kind of Hush; I’m Henry the Eighth, I Am, etc.) with puckish mirth, aided and abetted by fans.
One lady from Bristol, England, interrupted Noone’s patter to offer her own lyrics to No Milk Today.
“No milk today, the cows have gone away,” she warbled earnestly.
That put the broken-hearted lament in a whole new light, Noone had to admit.
“You know, when your love has gone away, and you’ve said to the milk man, ‘Don’t deliver any milk.’ And you look, and you see these cows going off to Sussex County…,” he mused, adding a hearty MOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Slideshow photos of The Buckinghams by Kevin Coughlin
Just like last time, Noone’s openers were The Buckinghams. Two of them actually. Carl Giammarese and Nick Fortuna from the original Chicago-based band brought an able supporting cast once again.
They acquitted themselves well on their ’60s hits, including Don’t You Care, Time Won’t Let Me, Hey Baby, Susan and Kind of a Drag, which knocked the Monkees’ I’m a Believer from No. 1 a half-century ago.
The also delivered some flashy covers, from James Brown’s I’ll Go Crazy and Eddie Holman’s Hey There Lonely Girl to the Rascals’ Groovin’ and a sweet take on the Beatles’ This Boy. (Noone’s Fab Four tribute was a lively All My Loving.)
“I remember when I was 50, my mum took me to see the Buckinghams,” Noone cracked. “They were new and fresh…”
Maybe that’s one of the blessings of getting older. The jokes always sound new and fresh. If Noone brings the same show until he’s 100, count me in. If Noonatics ran the asylum, what a wonderful world this would be.
PODCAST: HERMAN’S HERMIT PETER NOONE STILL INTO SOMETHING GOOD
