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Photos by Debra Rothenberg

We had a good idea what to expect after reading Iain Patience’s review of Van Zandt’s brilliant new CD, Summer of Sorcery, so missing the album release party on his home turf was out of the question. Actor, author, radio host, guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and performer, what’s the single constant in Van Zandt’s professional career? The guy delivers.

Not counting medleys separately, Steven Van Zandt and the Disciples of Soul gave us a good 15 songs in the show, and another five or so in the encore, four of which included his sometime “Boss,” Bruce Springsteen. Van Zandt wisely mixed in oldies from his back catalog with the new songs from his Summer of Sorcery album, brand new and unfamiliar to many in the audience.

Onstage, Van Zandt isn’t just the frontman. Like Paul Simon, he’s the conductor, the maestro, and—again like Simon—Van Zandt mixes in great gobs of other genres into his songs: mambo, straight-up blues, African rhythms, Caribbean, Mexican, ’60s girl groups. For all that diversity in a CD’s execution, Van Zandt does keep all the songs on on an album on topic.

“I always work thematically,” Van Zandt has said. On Summer Of Sorcery “I wanted to capture the excitement of that first summer of consciousness. That one special summer where you first fall in love with life, that thrill of just being alive.” The title song includes the lines “You were almost undressed, that’s what I wanted, savoring the mystery of what was to come,” and “I want to get lost in your festival of unlimited possibility.” One of the evening’s highlights appeared early on—“Love Again,”—a mid-tempo tale of longing rooted firmly in ’60s pre-Beatles music and concept.

Van Zandt didn’t run through the album. At one point he said, “I want to take a detour with gratitude to Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, with three songs I wrote with Bruce [Springsteen] for Johnny,” and the last of the medley was an all-time personal favorite, “Love on the Wrong Side of Town.”

The encore began with Van Zandt alone on stage, acoustic guitar in hand, singing the title tune and its many-faceted desires, slowly, another high point of the concert.

Bruce Springsteen made an appearance with another classic, his “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” a duet between old friends and sometime co-writers. After another tune, Van Zandt asked, “Anybody want to go home?” After the resounding “NO!” he and Springsteen performed a rousing version of Southside Johnny’s “I Don’t Want to Go Home.”

Van Zandt’s parting words to the audience: Love each other. Find our way out of the darkness. Be good to your teachers.

Excellent advice to end an outstanding concert.

—Suzanne Cadgene