BOC: in Kansas City, MO

[Jeff Thompson]

What a show!


Things off to a rocky start.  There was some drunk guy in the audience 
who kept yelling "Where's Allen?"  and "Play Sun Jester', you
jerks!"  Finally the guy climbed up on stage, and Eric went all
Pete Townsend on him and whaled him with a guitar.  A riot
broke out, and ...

...  Just kidding!

It was a good show.  Other than the fact that the sound sucked.  I
got in the second row, which was amazing compared to the other times
I've seen them.

So apparently the deal is, these casinos hire the bands, but limit
the time they can play, hoping that we'll go dump some money into
the slots afterwards.  So you're going to get a set that is an
hour long, or an hour and a half, and that's it.  The crowd can sit
and clap and yell 'encore' all they want ... too bad.  Lights go up and
the sound gear starts getting dismantled.

So, BOC got an hour and a half.

As has been recently reported, they played a Buck-heavy set list.  I was
beyond thrilled to hear stuff I've never seen them play live.
Shooting Shark, The Vigil, Before the Kiss, Last Days of May, even
Stone Of Love.  All they would have had to do is play I Love The Night
and my life would have been complete, go ahead and bury me, but, nope.

11 songs.  If I remember the order correctly:

The Red and the Black
Before the Kiss
Burning For You
Last Days of May
Shooting Shark
The Vigil   (good lord, is that 5 Donald songs in a row?)
Cities On Flame
Stone of Love
ME 262
Godzilla
Some random buck-boogie kind of thing, too short to be called a song
Don't Fear the Reaper

3 Eric songs, 8 Buck?  Good lord, Eric's throat must be screwed.

Still, Eric did all the patter, stories and jokes, and acted like
he was having a great time.  At one point getting up with the drums
and banging on the cymbals, bouncing drumsticks off the floor,  ..
I'm surprised they didn't have a cowbell for him to whack.
He really is a part of the live chemistry.

Eric sat behind the keyboards a lot, giving Richie Castallano lots
of guitar time. I don't remember which song Richie got to solo on,
but he was good.

The bass player Rudy Sarzo is a hoot.  He's the only one who looks like
a rock n roller with hair down to his whatever.  The rest of the
guys look like software engineers nowadays.  They played clips of
"Crazy Train," "Bang Your Head," and "The Still of the Night"
during Godzilla to give props to Rudy's other bands he's done time with.

Buck looked BORED.  Is he always expressionless?  The rest of the guys
move around the stage, look at each other to play in sync, while Buck
is emotionless.  I've never sat close enough before to really see
the expressions and the interaction, but I can see why someone else
on the list said it looked like Buck was in a bad mood.  He certainly
wasn't making an effort to emote having an infectious good time.

The sound was horrible, particularly to begin with.  I don't think
it was (entirely) the band's fault.  Richie kept gesturing
frantically to the guys at the mixers, who I assume were casino
guys, to boost the guitars.  The bass and drums were miked very well.
Cymbals were great, so it wasn't just that they didn't have the treble
frequencies up.  But the vocals were too low.  You couldn't even hear
the keyboards.  As the night went on, they brought the vocals
up to where you could hear them, and maybe I got deaf to the bass
frequencies enough so that the guitars sounded ok, but it never
sounded great.

The crowd sung along to "Burning for You" which was cool.  More so
than their other 'big two' songs.

I didn't mind the solos during Godzilla.  Give the new guys their time.
People enjoyed it.  Well, until Eric said "ok, here's the time where
Buck comes back in, but his guitar isn't working" and sound guys
were scampering over the stage checking his wireless transmitter,
cables, etc.  The other guys vamped a groove for a few minutes until
Buck was brought back online.

Anyway.  Songs I never thought I'd see done, like Vigil and Shooting
Shark.  I had a great time despite the sound.  Hung out and almost
snuck in with the VIP crowd who were talking to Eric (why not Buck?)
in the hallway before I finally got told by an employee to go away.
I'm glad I made the trip.  (14 hour round trip, because I'm missing
their gigs in Oklahoma.)

Oh, and a message to the guy who yells out "REAPER!  DON'T FEAR THE
REAPER!" between every song?   Shut up.  They'll get to it, ass-hat.

-- Jeff