Earlier this year, in a stellar Rolling Stone interview conducted by Mötley Crüe biographer and seduction guru Neil Strauss, 83-year-old rock & roll god Chuck Berry revealed his plan to stick around until 2020. So perhaps you’ll have plenty of chances to see an octo/nonagenarian duck-walk. But they’re likely to come among stuffy Ravinia crowds or at stifling festivals. To see Berry at a charmingly run-down people’s palace like the Congress is the first treat of 2011. This themed “Winter Dance,” a sort of adult prom, is hosted by Radio Hall of Fame inductee Dick Biondi to boot.
As the home of Mexican dance music and metal shows attempts to transform into an elegant ballroom, Berry might give a brilliant, fun performance, as he’s been doing monthly at St. Louis club Blueberry Hill. Of course, there remains the distinct possibility he may play a borderline terrible set, blissfully unaware of tuning, timing and the dissonance of a hastily assembled pickup band. You’ll have fun regardless.
Berry’s sense of showmanship has never diminished. Dismissals of his work as contrived amalgamations of car, school and girl tales are belied by closer listens, especially of songs such as the covert black-power anthem “Brown Eyed Handsome Man.” His sole Billboard No. 1, “My Ding-a-Ling,” was a silly novelty, but it can be read as a boast about how Berry successfully exploited the ’50s revival in the ’70s. And, obviously, his sexploits and sex tapes just prove he was way ahead of his time.
Berry’s true legacy is about being his own man, doing what he wants—his broad stage smile seemingly more about pride than pandering. Hopefully, he’ll be able to maintain that grin after seeing the Congress’s bathrooms.