LIVE: Patty Smyth & Scandal @ Alive at Five at Riverfront Park, 6/21/12

Photographs by Andrzej Pilarczyk

SECOND OPINIONS:
Excerpt from David Singer’s review at The Daily Gazette: “Patty Smyth came out for a full-on attack to a good crowd, both her and the crowd braving the sweltering heat Thursday night for the third week of Alive at Five. Despite the odds, Smyth put on a great show, winning over the audience with sheer energy and force. This was hardcore ’80s radio rock, all good fun. In the legacy of Pat Benatar and Heart, Smyth’s unabashed embracing of her ‘eighties-ness’ made the show a blast. The woman seems to not know she turns 55 in four days… During ‘Goodbye to You,’ she pushed her voice over the edge. She didn’t have to — the song would score high without the overdrive — but she wanted the crowd to know. Her band, Scandal, which she’s been with from the start decades ago, did little beyond backing her. For ‘The Warrior,’ one of her biggest songs, she left the stage to walk in the crowd, even climbing into the amphitheater. ‘I’m having heat stroke,’ she yelled once inside the belly of the crowd.”