Steve Wynn Live at The 503 Social Club (2025-01-11)
Steve Wynn by his own account has led quite the storied rock and roll life. Last August he released his memoir “I Wouldn’t Say it If It Weren’t True: A Memoir Of Life, Music & The Dream Syndicate” Since the release of the book, he has been on the road doing a combined book reading and music tour. After an early fall tour doing these combined shows over in Europe he brought the tour to the east coast later in the fall and will be on the road for much of the late winter and early spring hitting towns on the west coast. A small group of roughly 40 of us were treated to a one off presentation of this show when Steve visited his pal and fellow musician, James Mastro’s intimate art/event space, The 503 Social Club in Hoboken, NJ. on Saturday night.
Playing, talking and reading for a little over an hour, Wynn’s presentation followed pretty much a chronological order mimicking the sequence found in the book. Starting off with a quick reading of the book’s intro we then got to hear a quick cover of The Stone’s “Jumping Jack Flash”, a staple in the setlist of Wynn’s teenage years followed by a rendition of Wynn’s earliest song, “Sing My Blues”, written by Steve when he was a mere 9 years old.
Interspersed between the various songs were vignettes and stories, most of which are part of his memoir, which at various points he would take the time to read directly from. Quite honestly all of the stories were captivating but there were definitely some that stood out and truly grabbed me. Hearing about Wynn’s cross country Greyhound trek to meet Alex Chilton and then his subsequent 2 weeks spent drinking, smoking, listening to and paying for Chilton’s bad habits was particularly enjoyable. Wynn’s description of how he took The English Beat’s hit at the time, “Save It For Later” and morphed it into the Dream Syndicate’s “Tell Me When It’s Over” was absolutely fascinating for this music nerd and English Beat fanboy.
We also got a brief three question Q&A from James Mastro when we got to hear what it was like for Steve and the Dream Syndicate to tour with U2 back in the day. Needless to say however, it was the music and stories that were the real treats for the evening. The set of tunes, as I said, mirrored the events detailed in the book and as such were a nice mix of covers (most of which are not part of a typical Steve Wynn performance) along with early nuggets from the Dream Syndicate oeuvre. The only recent solo tune of the night, “Make It Right” from Wynn’s most recent LP of the same name. The song itself was written as a homage to his early days in the Dream Syndicate. As such it fit in quite nicely with the rest of the material offered up to us on Saturday night.
Steve Wynn at 503 Social Club Photo Gallery
Setlist:
- “I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True” book reading – “Introduction”
- Jumpin’ Jack Flash
(The Rolling Stones cover) - Sing My Blues
- Talking Loud
(The Suspects cover) - Sunday Morning
(The Velvet Underground cover) - “I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True” book reading – “Alex Chilton”
- Jesus Christ
(Big Star cover) - That’s What You Always Say
(The Dream Syndicate song) - Save It for Later
(The Beat cover) (>) - Tell Me When It’s Over
(The Dream Syndicate song) - Definitely Clean
(The Dream Syndicate song) - I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True” book reading – “The Days of Wine and Roses”
- When You Smile
(The Dream Syndicate song) - Make It Right
- “I Wouldn’t Say It If It Wasn’t True” book reading – “Making Medicine Show”
- The Medicine Show
(The Dream Syndicate song) - “The Hot Seat” – (Three Questions)(with James Mastro)
- When the Curtain Falls
(The Dream Syndicate song) - The Days of Wine and Roses
W.S. Walcott Medicine Show 
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