By Dave Miller

Willie Nile is one of the last of the true believers. He plays like rock and roll can save your soul.

Nile was once described as a "one-man Clash." It's a good description. He's a fireball onstage. His shows are not to be missed. That's why I made a special effort to catch him at FitzGerald's. Even though I was covering a football game for the Chicago Tribune that was being played on the far southwide in Frankfort on the same night, I jumped in the car as soon as I filed my story and sped down Harlem Avenue in the rain to catch as much of the show as possible.

I turned on Roosevelt Road in Berwyn just before 11 p.m. and entered the club during Nile's fourth song. The Nicholas Tremulis Orchestra, which opened the show, was backing Nile just as it did in his previous appearance at the club during last year's American Music Festival. In that memorable post-midnight performance, Tremulis' versatile, rocking and soulful band could almost be seen taking cover onstage in the early going before gradually becoming used to Nile's startling amount of energy. This time, Tremulis and his bandmates were prepared for the hurricane and grounded themselves to play as brothers in arms with the New York rocker.

One of the great things about Nile is his utter lack of irony or pretension. He pours his heart into his performances with a belief in the magic of rock and roll. He dedicated a song to Jimi Hendrix and sang about Bo Diddley. He held up the guitar like Excalibur and shredded it like an instrument of insurrection. He played his Hanson electric guitar so hard that the stage became littered with cracked and chipped pics. It's easy to see why his fans include Pete Townshend and Bruce Springsteen.

It's obvious the Rolling Stones are fans, too. Nile played "She's So Cold," a track from his acclaimed self-titled debut album that was released in February of 1980. The Stones released their strikingly similar "She's So Cold" in September that year. Nile returned the favor at FitzGerald's by kicking off the enocre with a glorious cover of "(I Cant Get No) Satisfaction." Tremulis' band supplied enough muscle and kick to send it over the top, and Nile took the song into call-and-response snippets of "Land of a Thousand Dances" and "New Orleans" before returning to "Satisfaction."

This was no mythological spin. The show was rooted in reality, good times -- and bad. The highlight was "Hard Times in America." A couple moments during the song exceeded even its spot-on, sad lyrics. After Nile broke the music down, he went on a short rant. "I'm sick of these hard times," he said as the band pulsated behind him. "I don't want to read about 'em in the paper anymore. I don't want to hear these guys on TV talking about my life anymore. Fuck that! I'm sick of that shit." By the end of the song, the four electric guitars onstage raged so hard and long that it was the best state of the union address I've heard.

Nile's pure passion is refreshing and inspiring. These days, it's also desperately needed.

The setlist:

Run

Heaven Help the Lonely

Cell Phones Ringing (In the Pockets of the Dead)

Singin' Bell

Vagabond Moon

The Day I Saw Bo Diddley in Washington Square

Give Me Tomorrow

House of a Thousand Guitars

The Innocent Ones

She's So Cold

Hard Times in America

Magdalena

One Guitar

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(I Cant Get No) Satisfaction/Land of a Thousand Dances/New Orleans

People Who Died

Start: 10:45 p.m./Finish: 12:19 a.m.

Totals: 15 songs, one hour and 34 minutes

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Willie Nile

September 23, 2011 @ FitzGerald's

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