Concert Reviews
As each summer approaches I start planning for what concerts I want to see, and i usually decide on the best one or two. But sometimes I see a lot of shows.
With every year that passes I forget more and more of the shows I have seen. So I've decided to start archiving them and reviewing them. This is my opinion. Some
of these concerts go pretty far back and forget a lot about them by now, but i will try my best to remember everything i can.
Date- June 7, 1992.
Performer(s)- Ratt, Great White
Location- Wheeling Civic Center
Attendance- Unknown
Ticket Price- Unknown
Review- I really dont remember much about this concert except it was my first. I remember it was awkward because
I was there with my mom. Ratt cursed a lot if i remember correctly.
Rating- 4
Date- July 3, 1996
Performer(s)- Metallica, Soundgarden, Violent Femmes, Rancid, Ramones, Screaming Trees, Shaolin Monks, Psychotica
Location- Buckeye Lake Ampitheater (Columbus Area)
Attendance- Unknown
Ticket Price- $40.00
Review- The first real concert I ever attended. It kicked some ass. It was Lollapalooza '96. I remember there being tons of
vendors and the MTV Rock to Vote bus was there. We got to the gate around 12:00 and the gate was supposed to open a half an hour later.
But there was some hold up and the 300 plus people waiting became very hostile. I remember someone throwing a rock at a guy that was standing on some sort
of stand saying that we needed to calm down. But we went in and enjoyed the show moments later. Psychotica started the day and wasnt really my style. A guy
in a silver skin tight suit came out with a spiked hair-doo on a cross made out of the same type of checked metal you would see on a semi-truck. He did a lot of yelling
and it was pretty hard-core stuff. But the crowd got into it. I believe the Shaolin Monks were next and they did a lot of endurance and strength demonstrations by leaning on swords
and doing all sorts of crazy shit to demonstrate that their religious powers were strong. After these guys we made our way to the 2nd stage. We watched a band there that was pretty good
for a local band (I forget the name unfortunately). Next up, Rancid. They were pretty cool actually even though i dont really follow their music or anything. It was an intense show which I enjoyed very much. The coolest thing i thought was the lead singer came out and walked around the audience shortly after his set. Everyone was aware that there was going to be a special guest. It was something that was going on the whole tour. We were lucky.
The Violent Femmes were the mystery guest. These guys just kick ass. They played a lot of good music and the crowd enjoyed them fully. I'm pretty sure the Ramones were there too. Unfortunately i cant remember there set. Maybe i was eating or something at the time or looking at the vendor area. BUT..... I do remember SOUNDGARDEN.
They wailed. The guitar player came out with a bottle of beer tipped back and I planned ahead. I knew it was going to kick ass so i staked out a place center stage about 10 rows back. Remember that this place is nothing more than a field with a stage on it.
While waiting for the show to start i bumped into a guy from town. MEAN Paul Whitmore. Well we decide to watch the show together.
Within the first two numbers i couldnt see Paul. I had brand new shoes on and they were ruined. The whole crowd of at least 20,000 was in a massive mosh basically. By the end of the set i was at the very back and to the left. The ironic part is i ended up right next to my uncle.
I was looking for him for like 2 hours and i finally found him. I would go into a lot of the songs the guys did, but whats the point. It's not like i remember fully anyway. So anyway-- next up METALLICA. Me and my uncle both decide that since the crowd was that intense for soundgarden
that it was worthless to try to get close for these guys. It was finally getting dark on the blistery day in July and Metallica was an excellent show ender.
I remember seeing a cloud of dust coming from underneat the crowd rising into the sky. Metallica did all kinds of great shit. Some ass shot a bottle rocket at Lars and it came close to hitting him. Somehow a blanket got thrown at James, but the guys didnt miss a beat.
Rating- 9
Date- August 21, 1997
Performer(s)- Neil Young, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Soul Coughing, Squirrel Nut Zippers, The Fool, Leftover Salmon, Spiritualized, Domestic Problems, The Chrysalids
Location- Star Lake Ampitheater (Burgettstown, PA)
Attendance- 10,242
Ticket Price- $25.00
Review- I remember not many people being there. It was a cold day which was strange for August. This was The Horde Festival.
I can't really remember much of the show, but the Bosstones kicked ass. I saw them pretty close up. Neil Young was great. I saw him from Lawn. We didnt stay for it all because noone was ready
for the temperature to drop so much when it got dark. We were freezing our asses off. This was my first show at star lake and i was amazed by the amount of people partying in the parking lots. I really
like the set up that they have at star lake too. I will look up some stats. on this show and post them when i can.
Rating- 6
Date- May 28, 1998
Performer(s)- Scott Weiland, Green Day, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Fuel, God Lives Underwater, Big Wreck, Urge, Jimmie's Chicken Shack, Black Lab, Deftones, Brownie Mary, Distractions, Ike Mccoy Band, Buzz Poets, Bitter Delores
Location- Star Lake Ampitheater (Burgettstown, PA)
Attendance- 19,602
Ticket Price- $24.00
Review- X-fest'98. It was awesome. The first show i went to with my friends persay. After seeing the Bosstones the first time i was very eager to see them again. They put on a hell of a show.
Green Day blew me away. They had tons of energy and great sound. They even picked a kid out of the audience to play a song with them. At the end the drummer smashed his set up and caught it on fire. It was great.
Next up Scott Weiland. Everyone i was with wanted to leave. This pissed me off. WHen i go to a show i want to see everything i can. But majority won that one and we missed his act. Everyone that went tot that show had an
excellent time.
Rating- 8
Date- February 9, 1999
Performer(s)- Bob Dylan, Brian Setzer Orchestra
Location- Nutter Center (Dayton, OH)
Ticket Price- $29.00
Review- The drive was long, but fun. We were on the road for around 3 or 4 hours on our way to Dayton.
We got there early and played some music in the parking lot then decide to make our way in. We were still early
The Gates werent open so we waited around for a half hour or so then proceeded to run down the steps onto the floor
to get excellent seats. That was the plan anyway. It seems when good ole ticketmaster advertised the tickets they said
$35 bucks general admission, which we thought meant we could sit wherever we wanted. But the ticket collector informed us that
only a certain amount of people were allowed on the floor so we had to sit in the nosebleeds. So I began to raise hell. Ticketmaster
had lied. I went to the ticket booth and asked them to exchange our tickets and after about 15 minutes of giving the guy behind the glass
a hard time i realized that nothing was going to happen. So then I started to Call ticketmaster to have them straighten it out. As i was sitting there
on the phone yelling. I really cool ticket collector noticed our predicament. It seemed that she had found people with floor tickets
that would actually prefer sitting in the seats. So we swapped and we got floor. FRONT ROW.
Setzer only played a couple songs because noone was really there to see him. It was a dumb move in my opinion to put the two on the same bill.
Most people were just waiting for dylan and setzer didnt recieve much applause. We heard Brian say "jump jive & wail" between songs and the band ripped into it. And he went off stage.
I had to piss really bad, but i was going to hold it just because i had such great seats. We waited and waited and finally the riualistic bringing of the bundles of lit incense to the stage
commenced. Moments later DYLAN was on stage. He was "on" that night. He kept on smiling at me. Everyone i tell this to thinks im full of shit. I have 2 people that can back it up though.
He would look down, smile, and then turn away real quick with a mean look. Dylan is a jokester. He played electric, then accoustic, back to electric and finished up the set. IT WAS AWESOME>!
Rating- 9.7
Date- May 31, 1999
Performers- Poison, Ratt, Great White, L.A. Guns
Location- Star Lake Ampitheater (Burgettstown, PA)
Attendance- Unknown (as of yet)
Ticket Price- $10.00
Review- Well the crew consisted of: Rob Parsons, Chuck Fischerkeller, Keith Knisely, Jason George, Ryan Bachman, Casey Lamm, Lana Null, Stacie Null, Pin-knife, Old Navy, and i think that was all of us. Basically everyone I hang with went. We got pretty drunk before the show. This may have been the best show of the summer of '99. Don't laugh, Poison puts on a hell of a show. I know, I know, its 80's hair metal. But 80's hair metal KICKS ASS!
L.A. Guns started the show, and we didnt know it was them until it was over. They werent very good. Me and my friends tried to get a Gun's N Roses chant going. Because as we all know Tracii Guns was one of the Original Gun's N Roses. Hence the Gun's part of their name. Well nobody knew that so it didnt catch on. By this time we were ready for some Great White. HOW MANY SONGS DO YOU KNOW OF GREAT WHITE? 2 at most. Well we didnt even think
they were gonna play their hits, but for the encore they rocked them out. They were ok i suppose. RRRRAAATTTT and RRROOOLLL. RAT isnt very good. AGAIN how many songs do you know by RATT. Round and Round, is the only one that comes to mind at the moment. CHUCK was psyched for RATT. I must say he had his "Ratt Energy". Then there was Poison. I must say that Poison kicks major ass. Every song Poison did, everyone knew. I have to say that we all got a large dose of
Poison that night.
Rating- 9.6
Date- Unknown (as of yet)
Performers- Allman Brothers Band
Location- Star Lake Ampitheater (Burgettstown PA)
Attendance- Unknown
Ticket Price- Unknown
Review- It was a spur of the moment thing. I was at work on a Sunday and i knew the show was going on that evening. So i made a few phone calls, got the guys together and as soon as 6:30 came, we were on our way to see the brothers. As luck would have it, we got there as soon as they started their show, we missed the opening act, but hey, we came for the allmans anyway. I went with: Rob, JG, Marie, Bachman, Lana, and a guy named john Ischy, he is my boss at the workplace. This was his first concert ever. The allman brothers kicked ass in my opinion, but several of the folks that went with me didnt like it because they jammed too much, well they may have jammed, but it was just what i wanted to hear. They were great. Unfortunately i cant remember much else about it. They didnt do jessica but they did do blue sky and whipping post. I plan on seeing them again this summer, they are going to be great.
Rating- 9.5
Date- July 9, 1999
Performers- Flash Bastard, Scorpions, Motley Crue
Location- Star lake Ampitheater
Attendance- Unknown
Ticket Price- $15.00
Review- We planned this one, 'twas the usual concert gang. I'm not a big fan of either of these guys, but it was something to do. The first band was: Flash Bastard. They werent bad, I mean they were the opener, and they arent supposed to be better than the headliners, but me and rob decided to heckle them a little, there was hardly anyone at the show yet, and we were in the lawn so we started yelling down at the stage, which provoked the few people around us to start yelling obscenities which provoked the dude on stage to say really stupid things like, "I'm not your mother" and stupid shit like that. So anyway they go off stage, then comes SCORPIONS they were great, I dont know how you are at concerts, but i am up and dancing around and screaming and what not. Well the hillbillies behind us started telling me to sit down and shit, but i didnt care i just kept on keeping on. By this time there was a good crowd accumulating. The weather guy called for rain that night, and rain it did. About 3 or so songs into Scorpions 1st set the black clouds started rolling in, they looked viscous. They were black as black can get, and they were humongous. About that time everyone started getting up and looking behind where the clouds were coming from. Then it got crazy. People started groovin because they were psyched up about the rain or something. Then the rain came. It was thunder and lightning pouring the rain down, hard winds the whole nine yards. So everyone is groovin. The scorpions do their encore, with rock you like a hurricane. At the end of the song, like it was planned or something, a giant lightning bolt strikes right behind the stage. It was great. So in between the scorpions and motley crue there was a big mudslide on the lawn. Im not usually into this kinda thing, but i figured what the hell and i hurl myself down the hill getting real muddy and more wet. Motley crue comes on and does there stuff, i wasnt very impressed, it was too loud, and i like loud music, dont get me wrong. But it was distorting too loud. I was cold and wet, and as they did Anarchy in the U.K. we left. On our way to Eatn Park. I was freezin, it sucked pretty bad. But the show was good
Rating- 8
Date- Saturday July 24, 1999
Performers- Steve Miller Band/ George Thorogood
Location- Star Lake Ampitheater (Burgettstown PA)
Attendance- Unknown
Ticket Price- Free For Me
Review- Well, at the time i was dating Ashley Hunt, so I went with her, a foreign exchange student named Levke, and J.G. It 'twas a good concert. We went and there were a good number of mullets to be seen. George did bbbbadddd to the bone and what not and played a bunch of music which was decent. I remember i Ashley yelled at me because i drank some beer and she thought her little angel of a german girl shouldnt see such things. It turns out that she was a rather seasoned drinker herself. Anyway, JG was smokin a big cigar and Ashley got all annoyed and said it was making her sick. It basically turned out to be a bunch of bitching, which brings me to my first point. DONT EVER TAKE A GIRL THAT DOESNT LIKE THE MUSIC TO A CONCERT! She drove up which was cool and me and JG had a really good time making fun of people. We came to the conclusion that the event security dont do much but run from place to place and stand around and never do anything. It was pretty cool. So Steve Miller goes on and plays his music which was bad ass, and he jams out a lot which surprised me. To tell you the truth i cant really remember much about it except he had a black guy rapping on fly like an eagle, it was pretty lame. But the best was yet to come.... As we left the concert.. EARLY! because ashley had to be home by 1 or some bullshit, but anyway there was a wreck and we were stuck in traffic for an hour and it was great, LEVKE fell asleep and me and JG just talked about the HAWK ronnie HAWKINS for the whole time, it was great, it is actually one of my favorite memories about the times me and him had. But we finally left and not long after me and Ashley broke up. She never gave it up either. OH well.
Rating- 6
Date- Friday November 5, 1999
Performers- Bob Dylan/Phil Lesh
Location- Pittsburgh Civic Arena
Attendance- Unknown
Ticket Price- $28.10
Review- EXCELLENT! Phil came on first and didnt say like but maybe a paragraph the whole time, he was jammin with derek trucks and greg hynes i think that night. THey jammed straight on for the whole set, like a half hour into his set he says some things and then they jam the rest of the night. It was pretty cool, a little monotonus, but good. They did Franklin's Tower for an encore, it was me and rob at this show. We got right up front again. Pretty badass. I had some extra money because i wanted to buy a tie dye or somehting in the parking lot, like 50 bucks or so. Rob bought the tickets and it was cool but there was a scalper and he was asking like 40 bucks a piece for the floor. We didnt have 80 bucks so Rob comes up with the stupidest plan of all time, he tells the guy he'll give him our 2 tickets plus 50 bucks for the tickets, so basically we paid 110 for tickets we couldve got for 80. Oh well you'll have that. So we are down front. Dylan comes on and jams out playing very good. He has like a shoestring tie on and a white suit. Rather funny get up, but what's it matter right? The funniest part is we jammed in the parking lot afterwards and it was great. DAVE Kinder is there out of left field with like 3 girls and they are all calling him pappa and im thinking, damn is dave the head of some cult or something? It was pretty funny, we didnt make any money though. There were hundreds of dogs there which was great, i will comment on how friendly the crowds are at these shows. if you are hungry they got great food and these people are just great. We got the brandy glass full of brown m and m's and dylan went on stage to put on an excellent show.
Rating- 9.5
Date- Memorial Day Weekend 2000
Performers- Hookahville 2000- Deep Banana Blackout, Bob Weir/w Ratdog, David Grisman Quintet, Arlo Guthrie, Ekoostik Hookah
Location- Buckeye Lake Ampitheatre
Attendance- 16000 reported hippies
Ticket Price- $60.00?
Review- Went with Matt Null and Bill Wade. We left really early cuz we were excited. We got their like 9 am friday morning, set up the tent and hung out all day. watched the sites and sounds and smells. Music started around 4 that day with deep banana blackout. they were kinda a funky band, they were decent. they had a chick singer. Then bobby weir played and it was badass. the funny part about it is that they played El Paso, the ole Marty Robbins song, and bill was like"whats this shit" he didnt realize that this is a Dead Standard. The encore was Touch of Gray. BADASS! WE drank a lot of Tang that day. There were like 2 cops in the whole place with 16000+ hippies in the audience, so as you could imagine there was a ton of weed and acid and any drug anyone would want there. Everyone was high. ekoostik hookah is a band from the columbus area. they are damned good, i suggest you give em a listen. www.ekoostik.com will give you a taste. We slept good that night, then i woke up in the morning in a puddle of rain. its all good, the sun baked us that day, we threw frisbee and shit all day until david grisman came on, it was awesome just the friendship and niceness of everyone there. The food was great there too. Grisman is quite possibly the best mandolin player to ever live. He is great. He played a lot with jerry garcia. Then came Arlo came on. He is great, funny guy, an excellent story teller. he played all his hits including alice's restaurant, city of new orleans etc. Great! Then came out ekoostik hookah and they played late into the night with an excellent encore, like i said go to www.ekoostik.com and they have all the music from the show available. its worth the download time, they are very generous with live material and everything they do, very nice people.
Sunday we woke up in another nice pool of rain. no music on sunday except the johnny cash that was played over the sound equipment, i believe ring of fire was played like 20 times over and over, but its better than a lot of other shit you couldve heard. Hookahville happens twice a year and is one of the best festivals out there today for lovers of the guitar emphasized melody based music of the past. I cant say enough. ON the way out of the parking lot which was a mudbog anyway Matt's battery was dead and we had to get jumped like 7 times and he couldnt keep the truck running. It sucked. A shitty ending to an excellent weekend. oh well though. it wasnt the festival's fault.
Rating- 9.6
Date- ?/?/00
Performers- Kenny Wayne Shephard Band, Jimmy Page/Black Crowes
Location- Star Lake Ampitheatre
Attendance- Unknown as of yet
Ticket Price- $24?
Review- I had the day off from Wendy's a fine dining establishment. Me and JG trucked it up to starlake in my car with nothin but our tickets and enough gas to get us there and back. IT WAS AWESOME! THere werent a whole
lot of people there and they upgraded tickets so me and Jg were up close. Kenny Wayne tore shit up majorly. He is great. Covered a Hendrix tune or two. I was very impressed. ON TO PAGE/CROWES! We saw the bassist out in the crowd before the show, I waved to him, he waved back, i wasnt tryin to get a mob of folks after him so i thought i'd let him have his space.
Excellent music, They teased stairway and everyone went nuts. All the zeppelin hits were played. For a good record it is advised you pick up the official release "Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes- Live at the Greek" excellent cd and an excellent show
Rating- 9.5
