By John Katsilometes Las Vegas Review-Journal
Bronx Wanderers have passed what we call The Mom T-Shirt Test.
This is actually a multi-step review of Las Vegas entertainment. First, does your mom buy a shirt at the show? Check. Then, does she keep the shirt long enough to wash it multiple times? Check. Then, does she neatly fold the shirt to continue wearing it (rather than turning it into a dish rag)? Check.
Bronx has passed that test. I arrived at this method when visiting Momma Sanna in Boise in April 2020. She was folding laundry as we watched “The Price is Right” (now a pandemic-visit tradition in my visits to Idaho), and held up a Bronx Wanderers T-shirt.
“Look!” she said, smiling. She loves the show.
Your family will feel at home with the Bronx family, is the point.
Bronx Wanderers have opened their latest rock ‘n’ roll, storytelling show at Westgate Cabaret. The show’s schedule hints at the band’s tireless quality, running 5:30 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and 8 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays.
The band moved into Harrah’s Showroom just before the pandemic, and expected to return to Cleopatra’s Barge at Caesars Palace, but was undercut when Caesars shut down that venue in May.
Westgate was ready, slotting the Bronx show in with popular magician Jen Kramer and the “Soul of Motown” R&B revue. Comic George Wallace’s status remains unsettled. At the moment, he is not part of the Westgate roster.
Having returned with a revamped show about a month ago, BW hearkens to the music of the family patriarch Vinny Adinolfi’s patron saint, Dion, through some of son Vinny “Vin A.” Adinolfi’s favorites. A turn through the Stray Cats’ “Rock This Town” is one sharp selection.
The younger Adinolfi plays guitar, keys, shows off his drumming, and has sufficient range to sing up on high during Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” He grins readily and makes jokes dealing with his dad by leaning on Jack Daniel’s and Prozac.
The show is stuffed with sing-alongs and familiar tunes, the type that evoke nostalgia. “Sweet Caroline,” a surf-rock medley of “Wipe Out” and the “Hawaii 5-0” theme, “Who Loves You” by the Four Seasons, Billy Joel’s “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.”
The guys toss in some customized lyrics in a new knuckleball, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back),” by Backstreet Boys (“Bronx is back, all right!”). A risky move, but the rendition is fun. They also add the line, “We’re Bronx Wanderers’ family rock and roll band,” for the “Sgt. Pepper”-Beatles closing, replete with a modified “Sgt. Pepper” album cover, showing the Bronx band.
It’s a good time all over the place. Vinny and Vin A. score with the crowd by returning to their Bronx roots. Recording star Tony Orlando, who made the trip to the show’s premiere a couple weeks ago, is among the family’s earliest supporters. So is actor Chazz Palminteri, who appears on video and tells the band, “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent and the choices you make will shape your life forever.”
Adinolfi the elder spins tales of how, as a young record producer, he was known as a hitmaker. Jim Croce was among his artists, and he was an exec behind Reba McEntire’s “Does He Love You,” just re-recorded after 27 years. A series of mergers and takeovers eventually threw Adinolfi into unemployment, but cleared the path for him to form a rock band with his boys.
Vin A., a guy born to be onstage, remains in Vegas. Bronx brother Nick, originally in the band during its five years in town, has opted to move his family back to New Jersey. He’s still shown in the old home movies, clearly an integral part of the tale told in every show.
Some of the Bronx shtick will prompt a roll of the eyes. The church choir piped in every time they mention Dion’s name, for instance. But it feels like dropping a needle on an old LP and listening with the family. We’ve done it many times. With the Bronx crew, the shirt fits.
