Donnie Iris and The Cruisers

February 22, 2025

Robins Theater

Warren, Ohio

There’s just something about seeing a show in a smaller venue.  I’ve seen my share of arena concerts; Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Bruce Springsteen, U2, Fleetwood Mac, The Police, The Moody Blues.  Aretha Franklin at Radio City Music Hall.  Saw a seriously spiritual Roseanne Cash show at Carnegie Hall in 2015. Lots of jazz performances in halls created specifically for that genre in NYC. Melissa Manchester and Don McLean at supper clubs.  I could kick myself for waiting until Les Paul died before ever going to Iridium.  I’ve seen Jeff Tweedy, Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Dead and Company, Chicago, Wolf Brothers, Ricky Skaggs, Psychedelic Furs, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Avett Brothers, Steve Earl, Margo Price in smaller theaters and amphitheaters. I  really dig outdoor concerts.  Nothing better than getting a nice buzz in whatever way you prefer and sitting in the sunshine listening to live music.  Of all the different settings, I have to say that smaller venues are superior.  Sports arenas are just not built for optimal musical enjoyment.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ll go to Dead and Co. anywhere, and their shows at Fenway two years ago were spectacular, but that’s because it was Fenway. The Stones at the Browns Stadium in Cleveland were great, and Springsteen can bring down the house no matter how large, but it’s more fun to be closer to the performers IMO.

I decided at the very last minute last night to drive two and a bit hours to see King Cool himself, Donnie Iris. He’s a regional fan favorite if you live in the western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio region.  I do not, thus the two-plus hours drive.  I saw Donnie and The Cruisers perform for the first time last spring in Erie, PA at the Warner Theater.  It’s a beautiful venue, grand two story lobby,  gorgeous plaster work and chandeliers, old fashioned in a good way.  I decided to go because the dude is in his eighties and after Tom Petty died, I made a pact with myself to see as many shows by older performers as possible before they are gone.  Donnie Iris and the Cruisers are an Erie hometown favorite. The show did not disappoint.  He survived cancer, had to cancel an 80th birthday celebration due to treatment, but holy fucking shit, does he still sound good.  He can hit those high notes on Ah! Leah! just as well as he did forty years ago.  Although it obviously takes more out of him now,  The show was only about an hour and a half long, but it was very satisfying.  

When I read that he was doing a PA-Ohio swing this late winter and early spring I figured why not go see him one more time just to be safe.  So at five o’clock I got in the car and headed west for the drive to Ohio.  I wasn’t sure I should go by myself.  I’m still trying to get over this thing where I wait around for other people to join me in random music adventures. I need to get more brave, but as I wrote almost a year ago, I’m working on it. I was treated to the most spectacular show in the sky as the sun was setting;  brilliant blazing orange, pinks, purples and illuminated grays.   My mom would have called it a Lenten sky (even though it’s not technically Lent yet), still cold and wintery, but inching toward spring, lighter out a little later every day.  My favorite time of day has always been the gloaming, and last night was a gift.  If I hadn’t decided at the last minute to just get a move on, I would have missed it.  So, a message from the universe that it was the right move.

I was afraid I might miss the beginning of the concert, but I did not.  Luckily most concerts start late.  I had plenty of time to get my Yuengling tall boy and popcorn, $7 total!  Another bonus to seeing shows in smaller venues is you don’t get gouged for concessions. I always try to select seats on an aisle and preferably not near any other people because I like to stand up and dance. This is a much easier task for a show at a small venue than in an arena.   I was lucky to get a good seat, a little more than halfway back from stage right, on the aisle, no one else in my row.  I hate to see empty seats at shows, but it was convenient for me.  I think I was on the younger age spectrum than most of the audience, but there were some people younger than I. The Robins Theater is one of those lovely old theaters that were built in smaller cities across the country during the vaudeville era and which have been restored and brought back to life. It holds 1,400 people and I’d say there were a good 1,000 people at this show.  A small lobby with red carpeting, beautiful carved woodwork, panels on the walls lit to appear like palladian windows. A proscenium stage, relief work on the arched ceiling from which hangs a magnificent chandelier, a balcony and mezzanine with a carved wooden balustrade. The sound was fantastic, not too loud.  Better for older ears, lol!  Donnie and crew took the stage about 7:50. He was in good form, sporting a Guardians jersey talking to the audience, getting down on his knees at the front of the stage for those high vocal parts, no breaks, just a solid hour and forty minute show.  The only break he took was when Joe Vitale, Jr., son of Joe Vitale, Sr. who was a former bandmate of Joe Walsh’s, took center stage to play a killer version of Rocky Mountain Way, a song co-written by Vitale Sr. and Walsh. 

The show opened with Agnes, Donnie asking the audience if they remembered it and everyone cheering enthusiastically and responding with,“We love you Donnie!” Next up was Do You Compute, followed by Tough World, Sweet Merilee, Pretender, Rocky Mountain Way, a rousing rendition of Knock on Wood, Ridin’ Thunder, a fun break for a polka which the audience loved.  A scorching cover of Cab Calloway’s Minnie the Moocher, a little Wild Cherry next up with Play That Funky Music, the classic Love is Like a Rock with a great back and forth, the audience singing the chorus. And then. The show stopper. Donnie in the middle of the dark stage, the spotlight only on him.  A slowed tempo guitar intro, everyone singing as he delivers a deliberately unrushed first version of the song. The anticipation builds as he sings the entire song along with only the guitar.  Then the keys and bass join, the music swelling, Donnie bouncing and bopping as the instrumentals get faster and the bass gets stronger, he’s hitting those falsettos- at 83 mind you,  and then POW…the whole thing bursts and the audience is wild as he breaks into the version we all know and love.  Leah it’s been a long, long time you’re such a sight, you’re looking better than a body has a right to..

This freaking song never gets old.  Who doesn’t, can’t, won’t,  sing along at the top of their lungs to this 1980 gem? Not me.  

He followed that masterpiece with the Jaggerz classic The Rapper that then segued into A Little Help From My Friends to close out the show.  Fan-fucking-tastic. 

Ah! Leah, is deeply and indelibly ingrained in my brain.  I have a vivid memory of back to school shopping at the Millcreek Mall in Erie, PA circa 1981.  Even though I am not from Erie, it was my mom’s hometown and I have family who still lives there, so the city was like a second home to me. I can see and smell and hear everything in this particular memory.  I was in Ormond’s, a clothing store that specialized in junior fashions.  The racks were stuffed full of 1980’s mostly pastel and light colored sweaters.  That store had a particular smell, almost like some kind of strange baked goods.  Maybe it was all the plastic fashion accessories and acrylic fibers of the sweaters.  I was fifteen and strutting my bad self down the aisles, looking for something that would make a good impression on my first day of tenth grade. I was feeling particularly sassy because I was going to be a cheerleader that year ( I quit the cheerleading squad the next year but that’s a story for another time) when I heard it.  Western Pennsylvania hero, King Cool, Donnie Iris’ Ah! Leah! on the store’s sound system. Anytime I hear a good song, no matter where I am, I kind of imagine myself as part of the song.  Always have. So natch, in my head I was wishing I was Leah and someone was singing to me.  Was there ever a song that went right to a hormonal teenager’s core than this song?  The passion. The lust. The desire.  Donnie Iris. Such a cool nerd with his black framed glasses and eighties style primary colored suits. Adorkable. 

Forty odd years later, forty odd years older,  I finally got to strut my bad self right into a beautiful small theater to see King Cool in person sing that song that I wished someone would sing about me. And not once, but twice.  Lucky me. Ah! Kara!