1996: This page contains all I know about Blue Oyster Cult for this year - and all I know is what you folks send me, so if you want to see more info on this page, there's an easy solution...
Have you got anything to contribute to this page? Reviews, missing info, ticket stubs, posters etc etc - if so, let me .
Here's a listing for this gig from the Friday, January 19, 1996 edition of The Spokesman-Review:
The old road warrior/dinosaur rocker Blue Oyster Cult will return to Spokane on Jan. 30 for a concert at Outback Jacks. Tickets are available at G&B outlets for $15. It'll be $18 at the door.
Some info regarding the 96 Northwest tour is that we had a terrible flood that year during the tour. The band was driving South after a show in Washington State, (Tacoma I believe) and ran into a major interstate closure in Olympia Washington.
The band had to drive back to Sea-Tac airport and catch a flight to get past the road closure on Interstate 5 to do a show at the Millcamp Saloon in Springfield, Oregon.
Also, I have a set list from one of the Springfield, Oregon shows and will also pass that along when I find it.
Just stumbled upon this vid from the opening band at the 12 Feb 1996 show:
It doesn't give much info to add about the BÖC setlist, but thought you might want to add the opener... a band called Venus Alley.
18/02/1996: Birch Hill, Old Bridge, N.J.
Support: 2 local bands
Setlist:
02/29/1996 - Blue Oyster Cult
The Evening Star Lounge
Notes: This was the worst BOC show yet. They had a couple of new cracks on bass and drums and the songs seemed to drag.
Billy and I were front row. The sound sucked so bad...we left during Godzilla and didn't see the encore.
Then only good thing was they played a ton of rare goods. In Thee and Lips In The Hills to name a few. Spinning Room was hip though.
Set list(s):
According to Gerard Guero, DFTR in the 2nd set included Buck's pre-Reaper noodle and is therefore the earliest show so far to feature this.
Obviously, Buck's performed it most gigs since then - in one form or another - when time permits, but does anybody know of any earlier instances...? Or was this its debut?
I found a listing for this gig in the Thursday 29 February 1996 edition of the "Ohio State Lantern":
Newport Music Hall - 130 E. Chestnut St., 228-3582... Blue Oyster Cult will be jamming their ancient tunes. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $12.50 in advance and $14.50 the day of the show.
On a now-offline homestead site, a guy called "Bradley C" gave the following details for this show:
Artist: Blue Oyster Cult * / Miss Trixie *
Venue / City: Shank Hall Milwaukee, WI
Date: 03-04-96
Ticket Price: $20.00
Just as a point of nostalgia the Shank Hall is the place where Spinal Tap unveiled the black album in the movie. All the theatre seating had been removed and the place remodled.
I remember this as being an awesome show and now that I see the setlist, wow. Anyway drove 5 hours home in the middle of the night in moderate to heavy snow. large flakes coming at the windscreen as a pretty thick blotter buzz was wearing off and wired from what I had just seen and heard. Sleeping wasnt an option.
This was a free show, for whatever reason, but BOC was in terrific form. Lanier was on fire, especially on the guitar. I never knew he could play that well!
The crowd loved "See You In Black". Big crowd, very appreciative!
This venue has since burned to the ground, but was for years a great place to play and see concerts.
The venue itself was a converted old cinema and the "backstage" area was actually under the stage.
I live in California, but am from Dallas, and happened to be in town visiting family when this came on my radar.
I had not seen BOC in 10 years to this point and was uncertain what they had left in the tank, or who would be in the band.
Within a minute of them hitting the stage, any reservations I had were destroyed by actually seeing the great Buck Dharma up close and on fire. A great crowd were on hand to make this show a very special event.
Afterward, my brother (who turned me onto the band in 76) and I waited outside the stage door waiting for some friends. None other than Don Roeser himself came walking out carrying 2 guitar cases which he promptly deposited in the trunk (boot to our UK friends) of a rented Lexus. Eric and Allen soon followed and they were all very gracious to the few fans lingering about.
Needless to say, this rekindled my passion for this weird music again and I have not missed them since. They are one of the few bands I travel to see.
The show itself was spectacular. Shaking the hand that makes those eerie, weepy, fat solos was the thrill of a lifetime. Nice guys.
I only know of this gig as a result of the following listing in the Friday, 15 March 1996 edition of the "The Galveston Daily News":
Blue Oyster Cult
Blue Oyster Cult, with opening band Midnight Circus, will perform at Night Moves, 310 state Highway 3 in La Marque, on Friday. The band Survivor will perform Saturday. Tickets are $12 presale and $15 at the door. For information, 938-8777.
here is complete setlist for SHADES april 13 1996:
I saw BOC at the "Shades" show on Deerfield, IL on April 13, 1996. By the way, "Shades" was a dump roadhouse type of venue, and there were two shows.
Allen was very drunk, and there was worry that he couldn't get through the last show!
Here's a link to some photos by Gene Kulin from this gig:
Here's the setlist for the 1st show:
Medina Entertainment Center in Hamel, MN; May 2, 1996
Nazareth opened for BOC...
Quiet Riot, Blue Oyster Cult, Nazareth - 1996, Fargo, North Dakota, The Fargo Civic Center.
QR were very good, but the sound sucked until about half-way through their set.
BOC sucked dick.
We left before Nazareth came out because my friend was pretty drunk, and I was too tired to continue with the charade.
We went to the Quiet Riot, Blue Oyster Cult, and Nazareth concert held Friday, May 3, 1996 at the Fargo Civic Center in Fargo, North Dakota.
I remember Quiet Riot started and were OK.
Blue Oyster Cult was awful. The sound was so loud and distorted, you could hear almost none of the lyrics. I had not listened to very much BOC and only knew one of the songs.
Nazareth came on last and was really good. It was first come seating and by the end of Nazareth most people are on the floor dancing around. A great end to the concert.
A recording of this show came up on dime with this setlist:
It matches exactly the setlist shown for Toad's Place, 1996-05-10 but I'm fairly certain the venue and date are right, as Kentucky is mentioned multiple times, and that it's a Monday.
BOC headlined...
First, love your list. I saw BOC in 1996 at Coyote's in Fort Mitchell. I noticed the other band wasn't listed - it was Nazareth. I'm not sure, but I think BOC played first.
Really small venue, I actually got to talk to Buck Dharma at the bar afterwards.
Thanks for your list - it really takes me back.
BOC apparently headlined the previous night's gig with Nazareth at Coyote's in Louisville, but as you've said you're not sure who opened and who closed at this show, I've left the actual running order as "unknown" for now.
Does anybody know for sure?...
BOC played first followed by Nazareth - I don't believe there was any local support band.
Question begs to be asked... did BOC AND Steppenwolf both perform Born To Be Wild...?
Regarding the BOC show at the Rocky Mountain Ranch June 22-96 - they were supposed to headline this show, with Nazareth opening for them.
It would have been the first time for me to see them, but they didn't show, no one made any kind of announcement.
After Nazareth played, the show just ended, quite a few irate people...
BOC, Nazareth, Ric Emmett, Randy Bachman, 38 Special also shared the bill. 38 Special was the last act to play.
I went to the Allman bros show the nite before at Darien Lake. What a great weekend of music !!
Setlist:
I originally had this down as a BOC headline, but the Pollstar stats seem to say Loverboy topped the bill, so I've changed it.
Can anybody confirm this one way or the other?
If memory serves, the club blew a fuse and by the time it was fixed, BOC could only do about 4 songs.
They banged out the big hits but did apologize to the crowd before leaving.
Complete setlist for 5 July 1996 Hoffman Estates gig:
Show one:
Show two:
Opening band was a Steeley Dan tribute band. Forget the name.
They played, tore down, BOC played, left the stage, opening band set up and played again, tore down, then BOC did final set.
Very weird show. Admission was free. No shit.
I found a listing for this gig in the 04 July 1996 edition of the "The Daily Herald" [Chicago] which sheds a little more light on the band line-ups for this gig:
Today on the Music Stage: Spencer Davis, 7 and 10 p.m.; Bluz Brothers, 8 p.m.
Friday Music Stage: Rubicon, 7 p.m. "High Maintenance" 8 and 10 p.m.; Blue Oyster Cult, 9 and 11 p.m.
BTW: I was interested to note that Saturday night's bill included a performance by the fictional Otis Day and the Nights... :-)
The only evidence I have for BOC playing this date is the following listing from the Tag's website:
1996 7/15 - Blue Oyster Cult
In total, they list six different BOC gigs at that venue. The most recent four that they document are definitely correct, plus they list this one as well as one from 1994. However, because they got the date for the 1994 gig wrong, that sort of leaves the "accuracy door" slightly ajar when it comes to assessing their overall credibility factor regarding this 1996 show... but don't press me to explain what an "accuracy door" is... :-)
All I can say for sure is that this date wasn't included in the original BOC.com schedules and I can find no evidence for it in any of the online newspaper sources.
Anyway, as usual, if you can either confirm or deny that this took place, please let me know...
A FREE outdoor show, part of the Alive At Five concert series sponsored by the city of Albany, New York. This was a huge beer-soaked party on a very hot Summer evening. A supposedly family friendly experience but when it's free and you are allowed to bring in coolers of beer it attracts all sorts of fratboy party animals.
This quickly degenerated into the worst BOC concert of my entire life as the night went on and the bad luck piled high onto my aching shoulders. Let me advise the younger guys here just for a moment: If you are going to see a band that you really like - leave the disinterested wives/girlfriends/mistresses who just wanna drink and party AT HOME!!!!
I can't go into specifics here but my nightmare included a girlfriend who didn't want to see the show, she wanted to BE the show. Soon to be half naked and surrounded by sweaty drooling jocks, she and her equally loose friend stripped down to bras and short shorts, gyrating like the exotic dancers that they were while the band plays and I stand by in an acid haze trying to watch the band and see that a gang bang doesn't break out at the same time!
The topper was that when they started "Godzilla", some drunken yahoo tossed a heavy foot-tall plastic Godzilla figure high into the air and it made a bee-line for my unsuspecting face. I could see some dark shape coming at me out of the corner of my eye but was unable to react.
It resulted in a full-on direct hit to my mouth complete with split, bloody lips and a swollen jaw. What should have sent me into an "Enough is enough!" frenzy instead proved to be the final capper to a thoroughly distressing night out. Or so I thought! Next came arguments, crack and a house fire! (You would not believe me if I told you.)
Was this one in July? Not sure about that since I drove West in July that year to take the Cal. bar and 7/19 strikes me as pretty damn close to when I left. Maybe it was a great send off.
This one was a hoot. I drove down in my new Saturn from NoVa with Rick D who's now in Boston, and another guy. Rivet and a friend of his, plus Miles?, were on bikes and we hit a major storm for a good stretch of the drive. It was painful for the bikers, but we made it.
This was when Artie was the tour manager and X-Files hadn't jumped the shark. Artie, being a major X-Files fan, exchanged some backstage passes with Rick for his FBI business card.
It was partly cloudy when we arrived and after some checking around, found ourselves in the trailer. Danny and Buck were working out Shooting Shark, and we paeons were just in awe. I asked Artie if I could have some grapes and he laughed, sure. Heck, drink as much beer as you want - certainly plenty.
Outdoor stage. We were stage right, *inside* of the media area and they kept looking at us like "who are they?"
Allen, Buck, Eric, and Danny took turns coming over to our side of the stage and playing at us. :-)
The only song I can recall is "Shooting Shark" since that was the first time I'd heard it live. Sounded awesome. We had a blast.
Rick Derringer opened this gig - great set, if not as powerful as when he had the Derringer band in the late 70's. He watched much of BOC's set from stage right. Great set = yes, shooting Shark was cool to hear, if not the best version I have ever heard.
Eric's voice was struggling and Donald sang quite a bit - as he would for the next year or so.
BOC.com has this gig down as "96-08-03 Canada - Manitoba Menendoza Lake". However, after seeing the following post, and a bit of googling, I've changed it to "Minnedosa"...
A friend of mine, while working at Canada Pacific Rail, was going through an Engine when he found an ad for the Classic Rock Weekend '96 in Minnidosa Manitoba, one of the bands scheduled for Sat was BOC, second from headliner.
Knowing how much of a fan I was he told me about it during coffee the next day, this being before I knew Bolle or belonged to the fan club or had any tour info on them at all, to say the least I was quite surprised and decided right there at the table I was driving down there the next day. Two of my friends not being big BOC fans but thought the whole road trip idea would be fun decided to join me.
I reserved a hotel room in Brandon, a small town about 30 min from Minnidosa, and set off for the 10 hour trip. Well we got to the hotel Fri night and they didn't keep our reservation and we lost the room, due to the fact of the concert every hotel room within 60 miles was occupied, no kidding!
So we decided to head up to the grounds and try to catch a couple hours sleep in the car, needless to say I never slept a wink and spent most the time walking around the camp grounds talking to people. Stayed up the whole day, ate a hamburger at about noon, got really pissed drunk, and at 10:00 pm BOC hit the stage.
No words in the english language could describe the feeling I felt, at the moment I saw them for the first time, and heard the opening riff to "Stairway to the Stars", every painstaking minute spent getting there was worth it, one of the happiest moments of my life!!!!
The set ended at 11:30pm, we decided we were sober enough and awake enough to try for home, we were not, but none the less we hit the road. We were switching drivers ever hour or so because we were so tired, while one person got a bit of sleep in the back, and the other stayed awake to keep the driver from falling asleep.
After that I saw BOC twice more now, once in '97 at the Classic Rock Weekend in High River where I camped with friends for the entire three days, and once in '98 at a bar called Cowboys in Calgary Alberta, where I flew up for the day.
This was a great show - got my first picure with BUCK, and also with Lonesome Dave and Rod Price of Foghat.
I only know of this gig thanks to an ad in the 13 Aug 1996 edition of the "Philadelphia Daily News":
Boomerangs On The Delaware
Wednesday 8/14 - Live in Concert
Blue Oyster Cult
$10 Advance - $12 Door - Doors Open 7 PM
On a now-offline aol site, the following details were given for this show:
John O'Donnell Stadium 9/28/96: REO Speedwagon, Eddie Money, Blue Oyster Cult and Lynn Allen
Was Chuck Burgi the drummer for this one? - see next gig entry...
Just wanted to add that this gig had Chuck Burgi on drums, not O'Reily or Miceli.
Just watched it on YouTube, there's an audience shot video of the complete show:
Well spotted, Mike - thanks for letting me know.
I knew they switched to John Miceli in December but couldn't be sure when John O'Reilly's tenure ended and the "changeover" actually took place.
Well, now it looks like it's a little muddier than that - there's clearly a short stint in between the two by Chuck Burgi.
All I have to do now is find out just when that started... and ended!
Ybor city in Tampa, FL. The yearly Holoween Festival.
Yankees were in the world series that year. Eric Bloom called out the score between songs.
Was Chuck Burgi the drummer for this one? - see previous gig entry...
What happened in November? If you know, please let me ...
Rehearsing and getting John Miceli up to speed was probably part of what they were up to...
12-27-1996 - Add Duck Butter as opening band...
Was John Miceli on drums for this show? My assumption is that he must have been...
This was a memorable New Year's Eve gig. It was in Indianapolis Indiana. I was up there on business (what a co-incidence!) and rented out the best suite in the Union Station Hotel.
BOC was playing in a mall connected to it. No one on the net had met me except for Bolle, as a few weeks before that, I traveled to California on business (what a coincidence!) and visited the museum. So, you know everyone on AOL thought I was crazy when I said I would be running a chat room from the concert during the show. I tricked my wife into coming by telling her that Kanasas was playing. I didn't tell her that BOC was playing till we were driving up to Indiana!
She hated that I loved BOC. We arrived at the hotel and the first thing I wanted to do was test out the Cell and laptop setup to make sure that my two weeks of promoting on AOL wouldn't go to Hell. So I walk over to the venue and who's the first people I see? Buck freakin Dharma and his wonderful wife Sandy. I was hyperventilating as I said hi:-)
The cell was good and I set up next to George Geranios and Rick Downey, who guested on lights. BOC played a short but fun set with the highlight (for me) being Buck's spotlight glasses. We had about 15 people at any given time that night in the chat room. It was cool, being online at a BOC concert... but this night was only a precurser to a special event.
After the show, we went back to suite. JR from Chicago and Lori and Mike from Louisiana attended. I got up the nerve to call Buck's room and he said he'd be right down! All of us had fun, especially with the B-52 floaters, which were instantly re-named ME-262 Floaters.
We all went out to see the fireworks. Kind of surreal standing next to Mr and Mrs Dharma and Lanier. We were content and if that was all, we would have been happy, but... everyone came down again and we had a great time.
The scary thing is, everyone that was at the party after midnight was part of The Ricky Browning project a few months later. Buck, Sandy, Danny, John Miceli, Jr, George Geranios, Art Ring and myself. This was not an accident, but I don't know what to call it.
All I know is my wife LOVES Buck now, and lets me indulge in any BOC activity I can afford. That, my friends, is worth the price of admission ;-)
A couple of other points: Miceli was on drums for this last gig of the year and Rick Downey did the lights and maybe the board for the show.
And for technicalities sake, it was 1996, because the band was out watching the fireworks at Midnight.
Kansas was the Headliner, and the Amish novelty act, The Electric Amish, was the warm up.
Rick Downey on lights? Sounds like deja vu all over again! I bet that was a bit weird for him...
Actually, I don't think it was weird. It was kind of a reunion of sorts. All really got along for that evening. We had the party in the Union Station Hotel and broke out the ME262 Floaters.
Everyone came done for the festivities except for Eric Bloom.
After Buck, Sandy, and Allen left, as well as Danny Miranda and George Geranios, Rick Downey and Miceli stuck around for a long time. I spent a lot of time with Rick looking at some websites he was involved in. It was such a pleasure meeting and partying with him. I remember he had a really cool business briefcase and all I could think of was "Wall Street!"