BOC: Columbus 4-1-06

Sun Apr 2 18:13:43 EDT 2006

Hoi zäme...

  Well, Mike must not be back yet from the solar eclipse in Turkey, so maybe that's why there haven't been any April Fools' posts here on boc-l.  So I guess I'll have to write something about my April 1st experience last night here in Cowtown, USA.

  (My favorite of the April Fools' jokes in the media was the one Bono made, pretending to complain about his image being "exploited" for some stupid cause or something...that really made me laugh.)

  So last night's show was at a place downtown near the hockey arena (Columbus has a 'professional' hockey team, if you didn't know...and you probably don't) formerly known as the PromoWest Pavilion.  But then, I guess the local entertainment promotion company that owns it decided that they didn't get any free money naming the place after themselves, so then they chose to sell the name off to whatever company was willing to pay for it.  (The basketball arena at Ohio State U. is called "Value City Arena," which was rather embarrassing as some people in the state of Michigan believed then it was only a matter of time that the whole university would become known as Value City University...which they dutifully began to use in advance....for those not in the know, Value City Furniture is a locally owned business that sells that crappy particle-board composite furniture that lasts about 8 months before sagging to the point that it falls apart.)  Anyway, the company that bought
 the rights was Lifestyles Communities, or whatever the hell it is...and I have no clue what the hell that means.  Nobody else does either, so now people are calling it the LC.  Even themselves, which probably pisses off the LC execs, since that pretty much kills the point of naming it after their business.  (They should name it after Depends undergarments, like the Chinese new year, or whatever it was in that crazy book by David Wallace that's way to long for me to consider reading without being sure it would be worth it.)

  So, anyway, the LC is not a bad venue, very modern and neat, with lots of good sight lines from various vantage points, including a sizable wrap-around balcony.  However, the balcony was only open to those who had (oddly enough) participated in a half-marathon earlier in the day (no doubt sponsored by the same conglomerate that owns LC and fifty other things).  And I can honestly say that this was the first time that I had seen awards given out to champion runners on stage between warm up and main acts of a rock concert.  Strangely enough, to add to the debate about male vs. female listening habits, none of the three women showed up to collect their awards in person but all five men did!  Including the dude from Kenya who smoked everyone else in the race.

  Well, you might think that that was the least interesting part of the warm-up phase, but you'd be wrong.  The opening band was already playing when I arrived, so I never learned their name, and didn't really care to find out.  They were all younger than the children of the 3OC, and weren't particularly interesting or memorable in any way.  The second 'band' were known as the Dan Orr Band, and were very memorable as being just about the most awful thing I'd ever had the misfortune of seeing.  It became clear to me (after the 56th mention), that they are a kind of 'house' band for a local morning radio show on the totally useless (aren't they all?  Deep Purple's new album has a funny tribute to same...although only on the extended CD version) classic rock radio station QFM.  And you know what that means....they take famous classic rock songs, play them EXTREMELY badly, and then change the lyrics to make fart jokes (and such) that only fourth graders would think were funny. 
 And then they do it over and over and over again 'til you're ready to jam Phillips (R) screwdrivers into your ears to rupture you eardrums.  (Seriously...they sang "Come on baby, light my fart."  Grown men!  And they get paid for it!  Ah, American culture is a wonderful thing, isn't it?  They failed to do a version of that Black-eyed Peas "song" about the humps, or lumps, or whatever it is...probably because they couldn't figure out a way to make it any stupider.)

  The sound quality at the LC is half-decent, probably better than the other similar club (also run by PromoWest), the Newport (over by OSU campus).  However, I would call it great or anything.  It's rather boxy with an aluminum sheet roof and walls, and so it's bit muffly and echo-y.  The best thing about the venue (which I'm still happily learning to get used to, since it's a new phenomenon) is the city-wide smoking ban, which means you can actually breath relatively comfortably inside the place (they have a little fenced-in 'holding pen' outside the bldg. where the smokers can get their fix in between the sets).  Though the stage crew then actually needs to manufacture faux smoke if they want to project the lights through it (not much of that either).

  Ah, well, BOC came on at about 9:50 and played the typical 100-minute set including all the normal tracks you'd expect....This Ain't the Summer of Love, Lips in the Hills, Golden Age of Leather, Shooting Shark, Black Blade, yada yada yada...

  Ha...got you...April Fools!

  No really, here's the set list...

  The Red and Black
  This Ain't the Summer of Love
  Burning for You
  Lips in the Hills
  Shooting Shark
  Buck's Boogie
  ME262
  Golden Age of Leather
  Cities (not Butts, thankfully) on Flame with Rock and Roll
  Then Came (and went) the Last Days of March (extended version with long soloing from Allan and then Buck)
  Godzilla (extended version with long soloing by Richie and then Jules)
  Don't Fear the Reaper (with prominent cowbell...no kidding)
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  Black Blade
  Hot Rails to Hell

  Doesn't seem like a long set list, but they jammed alot on a number of tracks, with Allan playing a lot more guitar breaks than usual.  The 'new' guys are both good players, though I didn't need them both to do the solo routine to learn that.  The best things were Shooting Shark, Last Days of May and Black Blade, since you don't get to hear these so often at BOC concerts.  Buck's voice was really strong last night, which was a big improvement over the last time I saw them (which was the Ohio State Fair in about 2001 or thereabouts).  He played just a pair of guitars, identical (I think) except for the coloration.   Both Steinburgers, the Emmentaler (Swiss Cheese) version and a starburst one.  Eric was in good form too, and played a lot more keyboard than usual, given that Allan was playing more guitar.  Richie sang the final song, Hot Rails to Hell, and he actually sings pretty well.  The crowd was pretty decent...I'd say the place could hold something like 1,500 or so,
 if you packed the balcony (they had tables and stuff up there on this night...not sure if that was only for the special half-marathon promotion or what), so there were the better part of 1,000 there I'd guess.

  So that's my April Fools' story...all of it is true, even.

  Grakkl (FAA)

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