Dick Dale still riding a rock wave

When I saw that the legendary surf guitarist Dick Dale was scheduled to perform at the Ardmore Music Hall on a Monday night two weeks ago, I thought of bucket lists - mine and his.

I had never seen the pop-music pioneer called "the king of surf rock" and "the father of heavy metal" perform live, and I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm not even as young as Frankie Avalon was when he made a promise to Annette Funicello in Back to the Beach, the 1987 sequel to the original 1963 Beach Party movie that featured Dick Dale performing.

"We can come back in the year 2000 and see Dick," Frankie assured Annette 29 years ago.

With Dale turning 80 on his next birthday, I figured 2016 might be my last chance to see him perform in his prime.

But after seeing him play to a packed house in Ardmore filled with baby boomers and college students, I wouldn't be surprised to see Dale become the first electric-guitar-playing centenarian to blow out an amp on stage.

Like members of the parody band in This Is Spinal Tap, who set their guitar volume at 11 on a 1-to-10 scale, in 1961 Dale was responsible (with the help of Leo Fender) for boosting guitar amplification on his Fender Stratocaster from a maximum of four to an unheard-of 10.

His surf-rock guitar-dominated instrumental hit songs from the '60s literally sounded as if they were blasted from rock quarries with names like "Nitro," "The Wedge," "Swingin' and A-Surfin'," "Stomp," and "Tribal Thunder."

His signature tune, "Miserlou," is based on a Middle Eastern folk song and it sounds like this on an electric guitar: Bidlle-liddle-lulllllllllll, lull-lulllll, lulll-lulllll, lulll- lulllllll lull-lullllllllll. Every l is a viper-quick guitar lick.

No doubt Dale makes that sound better than it reads, but you'd recognize it immediately from the opening credits of Pulp Fiction, when it explodes on the soundtrack after the opening scene in a diner.

Across a table, Tim Roth whispers to Amanda Plummer, "I love you, Honey Bunny," before pulling a gun and announcing a robbery. Then Honey Bunny pulls a gun and screams, "Any of you move . . . and I'll execute every last . . . one of you!"

In Ardmore with his wife and soul mate, Lana, sitting on a stool on stage facing him from a few feet away, Dale riffed through a repertoire of surf rock, country-western, classical Spanish guitar, and religious hymns.

You'd never guess how "Pipeline" and "Wipe Out" could segue effortlessly into "Ring of Fire" and "Streets of Laredo" and then into "Malaguena" and "Amazing Grace."

At 79, the left-handed Dale can still play his guitar with both hands fingering the frets. He also fingered the notes on his bandmate's saxophone and borrowed the drummer's drumsticks to plink out a guitar solo.

With his white ponytail, black ornamented cowboy shirt, and guitar stamped proudly with a miniature American flag, Dale was in complete control and made it look easy. And that was a considerable sleight of hand considering his ongoing treatment for rectal cancer, not to mention that he was in the final leg of a cross-country tour that started July 23 in Malibu, Calif., and ends this weekend in Annapolis, Md.

In between, with Lana beside him, Dale drove a little Chateau pickup camper to gigs in Denver, Omaha, Minneapolis, Madison, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Ardmore, Brooklyn, Cambridge, South Kingston, R.I., Asbury Park, and more. Did I mention that he did all the driving?

After the show I saw the camper parked behind the Music Hall by the Ardmore train station. From the windshield I could see the two of them catching a breather before driving to New York for the next gig - in exactly 21 hours and counting.

That's what I'd call kicking the bucket down the road.

Clark DeLeon writes regularly for Currents. deleonc88@aol.com