Concert Review: Dick Dale (June 7, 2002, Omaha, NE)

The night Dick Dale played in Omaha was the night after I saw Paul McCartney in Denver. Needless to say, I was tired from driving and screaming like a frenzied teenage girl. However, I made it a mission to catch the Surf Guitar King in Kansas City. After a three-hour drive to the Grand Emporium, a nationally known blues bar, I understood the pure magnitude of the Pulp Fiction hero.

Can you say “dirty old man”? But amidst the kissing of the ladies and the occasional guitar pick down their shirts, Dick Dale put on a clinic. He looked like my old Midwest farming uncle with a black sweatband and a hell-fire attitude. And I stood so close to the upside down guitar that, as he played, I might have suffered a concussion had he thrust his leather hips in my direction.

Watching that closely, I was amazed at the hellish force with which he plays. Dale doesn’t even use that much reverb. Instead, he puts so much pressure on the strings that it sounds like the effect is maxed. He brought the full house to a roar when he played the well-known hard-ass riff from “Miserlou”; meanwhile, he looked around as if only playing a few easy chords. Although his voice sounded pretty rough on the old 50’s tunes, the soundtrack of an ultra-violent surf flick was uncanny.

The small venue provided a great spot to observe one of the truly great guitar players of our time. I know it’s cliché, but I could not believe how Dale made playing the guitar look so damn easy. I must even bring myself to use the term “shred,” because that’s what he did. Of course, he can play guitar with his teeth, but he also played by beating on it with drumsticks. And not only did he make the guitar look easy, but the trumpet and the drums as well, playing a muffled trumpet in a cool jazz, Miles Davis style and hitting the drums as crazily as his six-string.

Fifty years after inventing the surf sound, Dick Dale still has his mojo working.

Written by Nolan Shigley.