BOC: London gig / Hi!

[Jason O'Broin]

> --
> Me262
> Red & the Black

+ Dominance & Submission.

What a gig. It really was excellent for Blue Oyster Cult to come all the way
from the USA just to play at my birthday party!

Nice to meet all the BOC-L bunch (cheers for the beers lads!). Beers a plenty
which nicely followed up some excessive drinking at lunchtime (a power cut at
work helped wonderfully in this respect!).

Some thoughts on the gig: visually, BOC surprised me. I haven't seen them live
before (and only on video once - the 1976 vid). I wasn't expecting Buck without
moustache. He looked a lot better without and looked in excellent shape.

Eric looked a lot like Tim what with the nasty goatee, but for my money, I
figure they are both looking like Geoff Tate from Queensryche.

The rest of the band were somewhat anonymous although Allan was up and about
playing guitar alot. Buck was playing his usual Steingberg (in Black) and
Eric was playing a red guitar with an upward pointing headstock. Anyone
know what this is (a Charvel?).

Audience was fairly young - a lot of people in their mid twenties. Very
enthusiastic, excellent responses to the songs (including the new ones) and
as Tim says, very keen because BOC haven't been here for a few years. Towards
the encore, a pit developed below Eric (ie. to the left of the stage) which
I dived enthusiatically into. Only one crowd surf but lots of jumping around,
pushing and shoving and general mosh pit violence. Wonderful stuff. I'm not
really 25 now you know!! Charlie (Mr. The Grinning Boy!) got himself involved
towards the end as well. Well done lad!

Setlist. Pretty good. Apart from obvious (ignored) requests from yours truely
and Tim for lots of songs with 7 in them, Shooting Sharks, Frankenstein and
Power Underneath Dispair, there wasn't much to fault. The whole show was very
tight, never letting up the pace or energy and was most satisfying. The solos
were largely based on the studio recordings, but Buck really went for it during
Last Days... - this was something else.

Contrary to Tim's report, Buck did a bit of finger cracking during Cities On
Flame, but only of the 'put fingers together and stretch arms downwards
variety'.

Some Workshop T shirts on sale at the show, but at 14 quid... Behave! Besides
I was skint after a rather expensive round at lunchtime. Eric and the bassist
(Danny?) were wearing different Workshop t-shirts. These were the ones with
the sphinx on the box logo just in the corner and looked better than the
ones on sale. Wouldn't mind one of these.

All in all, a most excellent evening. Nice to meet Charlie, Dave and Tim and
a quick hi to John Jarrett who turned up at the end and I could only wave to
before having to go and get the train back home. However, at least trains
back to my gaff were still running.

Jason
--
       Jason O'Broin - Development Engineer, ATM Adapter Group
Madge Networks, Sefton Park, Bells Hill, Stoke Poges, Slough SL2 4JS. UK
 Phone +44 1494 541258 Email: jobroin at madge.com or jobroin at madge.co.uk
       - Can I have everything louder than everything else ? -