BOC: BOC in SLC

[dahl]

Enough of the 3OC stuff already, on Wednesday January 22nd in Salt Lake
City it was BOC, Buck Oyster Cult.  The Holy Cow is a small club in a
stripmall.  We got there during the opening act.  I didn't get their name,
but they are a local band that sounded pretty typical of the current music
scene.  They weren't bad, just typical.  After they finished we made our
way to the stage and staked out a spot that appeared to be weirdoless, and
let me tell ya, there were plenty of weirdos at this show.  It was good to
see some younger fans there, but there was some wacko who kept trying to
grab Buck, and he wasn't reaching for his hands either.  We were right up
front leaning on Danny's monitor, which led to some real fun later in the
show.  The bad thing about this spot was we did not get any of the PA's
sound.  It was almost impossible to hear the vocal's (except Danny's from
his monitor), the keyboards  and Eric and Allen's guitars.  We could hear
the bass really good though, and Buck's guitar.  The setlist had a few
surprises:

Stairway to the Stars (always a great opener)
Before the Kiss (a good song, but no longer a novelty)
ETI (a great song, would've been better with VOCALS!)
Buck's Boogie (the vocal mikes ceased to work at this point, so an
instrumental was in order)
Harvest Moon (oh how I hope this ends up on an album someday)
The Vigil ("In this world there's good and bad.  This song is about the
good side"  BD)
Live for Me (another worthy new entry)
Cities on Flame (oh Albert were you desperately needed here)
Last Days of May (all they were missing was the spotlight hitting the
mirror ball)
In Thee (proceeded by the Salt Lake City blues, and no drums)
Shooting Shark (Danny played the shit out of this one)
Burnin' for You (and it seemed like many people there were burning for me)
Godzilla  (it's always cool to hear a song about your mother-in-law)
Don't Fear the Reaper (it just wouldn't be the big 3 without this one)

NO ENCORE!  (what the hell was up with this?)

So the guys hit the stage at 11:30 and nobody was happy with their sound so
it took about 10 minutes of screwing around to get things functional.

Let's start with Eric.  Something is wrong with his voice.  He sang
everything in a lower register and even had a hard time talking.  He was
not much of a presence on stage.  He spent most of his time behind the
keyboards, and not playing much (although it was difficult to hear the
keyboards from my position).  When he did have his guitar he didn't play
much.  It was very disappointing to see him like this.  Buck sang the
verses with Eric on Cities on Flame.  It sucked.  The show really hurt from
his absence.

Buck was another story.  He was the only thing that night that even
resembled Blue Oyster Cult.  It was pretty cool being so close to him that
I could see his watch was still set to EST.  He constantly had problems
with his effects controller, but like the pro he is, he didn't let it slow
him down much.  His playing wasn't quite as smooth as the last time I saw
them, but he was still incredible.  Buck really muffed it on the guitar
lick that proceeds "We run in circles".  He kept stomping his effects
controller not finding the sound he wanted and in the meantime was playing
nothing close to the lick, and as luck would have it, it's a part of the
song where he's the only one playing.  It seems to me that when I saw them
on the Mirrors tour that Allen played this lick on the keyboards and Buck
just sang.  You've got to admire him for attempting to play that and sing
at the same time.

Allen was still breathing and spent most of his time playing guitar (at
least it looked that way).  He even sang on the chorus of Godzilla.

Danny was in great shape this night.  I know in last year's review I gave
him a hard time, but he definitely had it together on this night and seemed
to be having more fun than anybody else.  There was a blonde girl next to
me that seemed to be interested in him (bassplayers get all the chicks,
right John?).  In between songs he reached out to her and said "Hi, I'm
Danny, I'm a Pisces.  What's your name?".  To which she replied "Tammy".
He then mumbled something that sounded like "John Swartz", or maybe he said
"my swartz"?  Allen was watching this with amazement and came over to check
it out.  He leaned over to Danny and said "You're gonna score.  Does she
have any friends?".  Then he kinda stared off in to space for awhile as if
to ponder whether or not there was enough alcohol in the place to make this
happen.  It was kind of like watching some nature film on the mating ritual
of musicians.  All that was missing was Marlin Perkins.

The drummer-of-the-month was John Micelli (I'm not sure of the spelling,
and neither is my spellchecker).  He was obviously a very good drummer, but
needed some more rehearsal with the band.  He had charts for all of the
songs (you should have seen him scramble for Buck's Boogie when they played
it spontaneously).  For the most part he played things very well, but kept
looking for help from the other guys and didn't get it.  He even had a
difficult time getting the stage crew to get him a drink.  He really
screwed up Buck's Boogie, but I doubt that many people in the audience even
noticed.  His inability to relax and just play really hurt the whole band.
There was very little about the show that seemed polished.

Overall I was very disappointed in the performance.  I would rather that
Eric not try to sing in his condition.  In fact, maybe he should just sit
out until he gets it together.  I know some people are crying out for Buck
to go solo.  If you ask me, that's what this was.  It had to be frustrating
for them to play this show in a stripmall, with all kinds of sound and
musician problems, and having a couple of wackos in your face all night.
It was embarrassing.  There's plenty more Buck songs that they could add so
Eric doesn't have to struggle and almost lipsinc.  It was about 1:30 when
we stopped booing because there was no encore, and we didn't stick around
to see how Danny made out.  Yes, there were a few of us who had jobs to go
to the next day.  The best thing about the show was meeting Brad Lauchnor a
long time BOC-Ler.  He's a very cool guy and I'm just glad I didn't have to
stand behind him (he's 6' 6").

My wish list for BOC:

Eric to get well.
The new album to be finished and available in the U.S.
A regular drummer.
Them to come back to SLC and start playing by 10:00.
Hot Rails to Hell with me singing and playing bass (this is a wish list).
A few less wackos.
More chicks for bassplayers, that would be cool.