The Smithereens bring "Blood and Roses" to Hendricks Live! on Nov 20

The New Jersey power-pop band plays Plainfield's 600-seat downtown theater on a Friday night, the night before Chicago.

There's a particular kind of song that sounds better in a 600-seat room than it ever did on the radio: big guitars, a hook built like a load-bearing wall, a chorus the whole room already knows. The Smithereens wrote a stack of them, and on Friday, Nov. 20, they bring them to Hendricks Live! in downtown Plainfield.

The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are through the venue at hendrickslive.org. We have no earlier Indianapolis-area show for the band in our records, and the room holds just 600, so this is a close-up look at a band that used to fill much bigger places.

The story starts in Carteret, N.J. Guitarist Jim Babjak, drummer Dennis Diken and bassist Mike Mesaros grew up together there and graduated from Carteret High School in 1975; in 1980 they formed the band with singer and songwriter Pat DiNizio, from nearby Scotch Plains, according to NBC News. The breakthrough came when MTV picked up the video for "Blood and Roses", from the 1986 debut *Especially for You*. "A Girl Like You", originally written for Cameron Crowe's *Say Anything*, carried the 1989 album *11* into the Billboard top 50. "Only a Memory" and "Behind the Wall of Sleep" belong on any honest list of the era's best guitar-pop.

Big guitars, a hook built like a load-bearing wall, and a chorus the room already knows.

DiNizio died in December 2017 at 62. The surviving three kept going. After a 2018 memorial concert, they returned to the road with a rotating cast of guest lead singers, principally Marshall Crenshaw and Robin Wilson of the Gin Blossoms. That's an unusual arrangement, and it works because the songs were always the star: the original rhythm section and Babjak's guitar are the sound people remember. The band was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in 2018. Check the venue's listing for who's singing on Nov. 20.

This fall's run has them in San Jose and San Francisco this week, then Plainfield, then Chicago the very next night, Nov. 21, before a pair of Jersey Shore homecoming dates in December.

The room is new to a lot of people. Hendricks Live! opened in spring 2024 at 200 W. Main St. as part of the Plainfield Civic Center, a 600-seat proscenium theater sharing a building with the town's government center and chamber of commerce, with a parking garage attached. Downtown Plainfield doesn't have many rooms this size, and a seated theater with real sightlines is a good fit for a band whose crowd mostly first saw them on MTV.

For anyone coming from Indianapolis, Plainfield is a short drive west, and the attached garage takes the guesswork out of parking. An 8 p.m. Friday start means you can get there after work without rushing.

Forty-plus years after Carteret, three of the four guys who started this are still on stage, still playing the songs. Bring someone who remembers them the first time around.

Sources: NBC News: Pat DiNizio, lead singer of Smithereens, dead at 62 (nbcnews.com); Legacy.com: Pat DiNizio 1955–2017, lead singer for the Smithereens (legacy.com); New Jersey Hall of Fame: The Smithereens (njhalloffame.org); Songfacts: A Girl Like You (songfacts.com); Boston Globe: Pat DiNizio, lead singer of the rock band the Smithereens, 62 (bostonglobe.com); Chicago Concert Reviews: North Shore Center marks The Smithereens' 45 years, Gin Blossoms' Robin Wilson stands in (chicagoconcertreviews.com); IBJ: New 600-capacity entertainment venue in Plainfield unveils preview events (ibj.com); Avon Chamber: Hendricks Live! announces opening events for spring 2024 (business.avonchamber.org); Hendricks Live! (hendrickslive.org); JamBase: The Smithereens at Hendricks Live! (jambase.com)