BOC: Freedom Fest '96

[David Zeiger]

Well, I went to Freedom Fest tonight, with Blue Oyster Cult, Kansas,
and Styx.

It's a good thing I really like Kansas, and somewhat like Styx...

Not that it was BOC's fault, mind you.  They did a good job, all
things considered.  Look at what they had going against them.

1) They got to play all of five songs (Stairway, Before the Kiss,
Burnin' For You, Godzilla, Reaper).  I *knew* it was going to be
a rather short set, but that's almost criminal.

2) Stairway had to have the worst mixing job in history.  With
about 20-30 seconds left in the song, they *finally* realized that
Buck, not Eric, was playing lead guitar.  Until that time, Eric's
playing was *much* louder than Buck's.

3) The microphone gave out a mighty feedback squeal when Eric started
singing.  I thought those kind of screw-ups were left behind once we
got out of public-address gatherings.

4) Right after the squeal, the mixer decided we needed more drums.
5 seconds later, he decided that drowning out hte guitars with
percussion *wasn't* such a good idea after all.

5) If I didn't *see* Allan play the keyboards, I wouldn't *know* he
was playing the keyboards.

6) Backing vocals were non-existant.  After they finished Burnin',
Eric said something to the crowd.  I have no idea what it was--even
when nobody was playing, I couldn't hear him.

7) They actually put Danny's monitor on stage and hooked it up in
the middle of Stairway.

8) With Styx's stuff on stage, and Kansas' stuff in front of that,
and BOC's stuff in front of that, it was a bit crowded.  Not a big
deal music-wise, but I bet it was a bit uncomfortable.

9) It's a good thing that their set was in broad daylight.  During
guitar solos, the spotlight guy would focus on whichever guitar
player seemed the most animated.  Since Buck pretty much just
stands still during complicated solos, it was almost never on him.

It's kind of sad that the club that they played at a couple months
ago did a better job than the big auditorium.  No *wonder* they
prefer the club circuit, if this is any example.

Ah, well, at least Kansas still does a kick-ass job--I still
am amazed every time the lead singer does headstands on his
keyboard.

Styx seemed rather uninspired.  This might have something to do with
the fact that they've managed to write one new song in the past
13 years.  It's kind of sad that of the three bands there, one
has a record deal for a new album (German, true, but a deal's a
deal), one *has* a new album, but the one that hasn't done jack
in the last decade is the headliner.

Then again, the next two shows are Ted Nugent/Bad Company and
Foreginer/REO Speedwagon/Frampton, so I guess Styx isn't so
bad :-).
--
            David Zeiger              dzeiger at netcom.com

Windows 95: The Dracula of Operating Systems--it sucks up all your
memory, bleeds your hard drive dry, and only works an average of
12 hours out of every 24.