Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe , June 19 (UPI) -- The biggest event in Newport, Rhode Island last week was the yacht race to Bermuda which had the tony wine bars along regatta row filled with fashionably slickered recreational maritimers. But across town, in a section of the city whose connection to a relatively sordid past of catering to the sailors from the nearby Navy base has been relegated to several upscale tattoo parlors, a far different event was taking place. Heat Generation VIII, the annual party thrown by a group of Rhode Island rock fans, celebrated the pending 25th anniversary of New Orleans' greatest rock band, the Radiators. Advertisement The Radiators may well be the only major label-released rock band (a 1980s run with Epic records that produced four albums qualifies them) to have performed together consistently without firing or losing a charter member over the course of the last quarter century. Advertisement Though the band has managed to avoid celebrity-level success (its eccentricity guarantees that) the Radiators continue to be among the Crescent City's musical royalty, a strong draw at the local clubs and the perennial closing act of the city's signature musical event, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The Radiators have also built intensely loyal followings in various outposts from Minneapolis to San Francisco ... to Rhode Island, which also draws heavily from the fan bases in New York and Boston. The audience keeps growing at a slow but inexorable pace as each new generation of music fans hears by word of mouth that this is an experience not to be missed. Few leave disappointed. The temperature hovered at an unseasonable level, in the mid-50s, under the darkly glowering skies of a developing nor'easter as the Radiators prepared to generate some of that heat on the Thursday night show that kicked off the three-day party. "We enjoy playing these special events," said keyboardist, singer and principal songwriter Ed "Zeke" Volker. "It gives us a chance to dust off some of the oddities from our broom closet." For a band with a book of approximately 2000 original songs and a comprehensive knowledge of American popular musical history dating back to ragtime and encompassing the entire history of blues, country and rock & roll, that is indeed a vast closet. When you consider that the group mixes and matches all this material at will and Volker in particular takes an alchemist's approach to attaching new lyrics to familiar melodies, it becomes obvious why no two Radiators shows are ever the same. Advertisement On opening night the Rads delivered a prime illustration of their ingenious method. The set included a nearly century-old blues classic, "St. James Infirmary" and a 75-year old blues touchstone -- first recorded by the legendary Robert Johnson -- but perhaps better known in the version done by the Rolling Stones, "Love In Vain." Dave Malone, the band's affable frontman who shares lead vocal and guitar duties, pulled out the folk songs "Solitary Man" and "Greenback Dollar," the latter eliciting a joyous sing-along response from the crowd: "I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar/ I just want to dance, I just want to holler!" Lead guitarist Camile Baudoin, a completely eccentric player who constantly comes up with unexpected twists to his playing, powered through an extraordinary version of "Hey Joe" studded with Jimi Hendrix signature riffs in the fills between each line. Baudoin even made witty references to his own musical puns across the three nights of the event, throwing in a reference to Hendrix's "Fire" on the last night. The band also fabricated a sneaky introduction to Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" as well as several of its own songs, including the rocking "Confidential" from the "Zigzaggin' Through Ghostland" album and a spooky, unrecorded song called "End of the World" that Volker said he wrote for the millennium. Advertisement The second night produced more miraculous moments, from the Mississippi Sheiks ("Sittin' On Top of the World") to the Beatles ("You Can't Do That") and the Doors ("Crystal Ship"). Volker visited his swamp muse for the ethereal "Birdland" and its companion piece, "The Girl With the Golden Eye." Malone was at his best on "Death of the Blues" and the band treated the dancing crowd to a parallax series of train songs and references, from "Mystery Train" through "Smokestack Lightning" and "Nightmare On the Misery Train." Reggie Scanlan got a new bass on night two and by the third night the band was so fired up most of the music was played without a break between songs. Scanlan and drummer Frank Bua were absolutely locked into each other's playing and they powered the band into ecstatic territory. The Volker gems "Creepin Vine," "Hold Back the Flood" and "Wild and Free" led to Malone's "I Don't Speak Love." Volker sang the wry love song "Salty Jane" as its subject danced in front of him, twirling a magic whirligig in the air. Volker deftly segued into one of the band's oldest songs, "Nail Your Heart To Mine." On it went .. Malone singing "For What It's Worth," Volker ruminating on James Joyce and Jorge Luis Borges on "Riverrun." There was so much more: "Route 66," "After Midnight," "Pass the Hatchet," "2000 Light Years From Home." Advertisement "Some day I'm gonna tell you about a girl named Anaesthesia," Volker promised the crowd. But there was no forgetting these gigs.
