The Boss’s drummer is coming back to Central Kentucky — and he’s only playing request

The last time Max Weinberg played in Central Kentucky, he had an audience as well as an agenda.

The audience came from the 10,000-plus fans that flocked to Rupp Arena on a November Thursday in 2002. The agenda was familiar – manning the drums and serving as the fire in the rock ‘n’ roll engine room of the E Street Band, the volcanic ensemble that has long been in service to Bruce Springsteen. It was a tenure that began in 1974 and culminated in 2014 with the E Street Band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But the musician Springsteen long ago dubbed as “The Mighty Max” always had a knack for involving himself with intriguing projects when his boss — make that, The Boss — veered away from E Street. After Springsteen dissolved the band, seemingly for good, in 1989, Weinberg wound up not onstage but on television as leader of the Max Weinberg 7, the industrious house band for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” The drummer would remain with O’Brien during his brief tenure as host of “The Tonight Show.”

By that time the E Street Band had been reactivated, leaving Weinberg juggling two careers with touring duties as part for the former often requiring leave-of-absences from the latter. Weinberg didn’t follow O’Brien to TBS for his current “Conan” show, devoting his performance time to Springsteen as well as his own music. With the E Street Band on hiatus during the Boss’ extensive solo Broadway run in 2018 and the subsequent recording of the orchestrally inclined “Western Stars” album, Weinberg hatched another performance idea.

This time the agenda would shift. Instead of playing what Springsteen wanted, instead of playing even what he wanted, he devised a show catered to what his audience wanted to hear. Hence, for the formation of Max Weinberg’s Jukebox, which brings the drummer back to Central Kentucky for the first time in almost 17 years this weekend at the Grand Theatre in Frankfort.

Audiences for the Jukebox shows get to pick the repertoire each night from a video list of over 200 songs. Then Weinberg gets to work with his four-member band, utilizing chops gained not just through decades of concert marathons with Springsteen, but through a youth spent playing in everything from New Jersey bar bands to Broadway pit orchestras.

What can the Frankfort audience expect from a celebrity instrumentalist in the novel position of not having promote a new musical product of his own as he tours?

In the case of a Minneapolis concert in late August, that translated into an evening of hits popularized by The Beatles, The Monkees, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and Creedence Clearwater Revival along with, yes, a Springsteen favorite or two.

So why the big deal about a drummer, even a famous one, playing an evening of cover tunes? Well, if you have witnessed just how vital a role Weinberg has played in Springsteen’s E Street shows through the years, if you have experienced how his sense of precision, intuition, soulfulness and limitless stamina in one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most continually vital and vigorous performance ensembles, you would know. You would also understand just how rare the opportunity is to catch Weinberg with his own band in such an intimate setting as the Grand.

It’s no wonder then that Springsteen referred to the drummer as “the indefatigable, almost dangerously dedicated Mighty Max Weinberg” when he inducted the E Street Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Better yet was a more succinct but equally flattering summation he gave Weinberg and pianist Roy Bittan, both of whom joined the E Street Band after answering an audition notice in the Village Voice.

“They are my professional hitmen.”

Max Weinberg’s Jukebox

When: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 6

Where: Grand Theatre, 308 Clair St. in Frankfort.

Tickets: $35-$50. 502-352-7469.

Online: grandtheatrefrankfort.org, maxweinberg.com

This story was originally published September 3, 2019 at 7:14 PM.