I saw Blue Oyster Cult with opening act Mark Farner at The State Theater in Kalamazoo MI last night.
Farner opened things up doing a little over an hour set of classic Grand Funk music. Although I had seen the current version of Grand Funk earlier in the summer, I had never seen Farner. For 69 years old, he is still in great physical shape, and his voice was pretty much flawless. I did not realize he played as many instruments as he does, as he switched from guitar to keyboards and even threw in some percussion. His band were all very good too, with the keyboard player singing the Don Brewer parts of the Grand Funk songs. The drummer was particularly impressive. I was never a huge Grand Funk fan, but like some of their stuff and it ended up being a fun enjoyable set.
SET LIST ( I may be missing a few):
ARE YOU READY
ROCK N ROLL SOUL
WE’RE AN AMERICAN BAND
HEARTBREAKER
CREEPIN
BAD TIME
SHININ ON
THE LOCO MOTION
SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL
I’M YOUR CAPTAIN
Blue Oyster Cult came on next. I have seen this band around 20 times over the years, and the first thing that became apparent when they walked on stage was that Eric Bloom was not there. After the second song, Buck said that Eric was ill an unable to perform. He said it was nothing serious, but you always get a little worried with guys their age. So….we had a show with no Eric and Buck playing the front man role all night which is unusual for him. Richie Castellano took over the Bloom vocal / key / guitar parts and they also had an extra guitarist / keyboardist on stage who it appears was just filling in for this show. Also absent was Kasim Sultan who has been their bass player for quite a few years now. Taking his place was ex BOC bassist Danny Miranda who is back after being a touring member of Queen the last few years. It was an overall odd night, and the set list was definitely skewed more towards Buck’s songs than Eric’s. Richie did a nice job on vocals, and did some great guitar work, but he had a little teleprompter next to his microphone and from our seats he was having to glance over at it for his lyrics quite a bit. Buck, was amazing as always and he really stretched out some incredible guitar solos over the course of the night. His voice is still in good shape as well. I am not sure how comfortable he is as a front man, but he gave it his best shot. I would say the theater was only about half full (it holds 1500). I thought the ticket prices were a bit steep which may have kept some people away, considering the band played a summer festival a year ago for something like $10. The band don’t bring any production with them either, so the lighting was pretty pedestrian, especially compared to old school BOC standards. I did really like the set list though, as they pulled out some rarities that being the big BOC head that I am I totally dug. All in all it was a good, but weird BOC show. Far from the best I have seen, but the band did the best they could with an adverse situation.
SET LIST:
DANCING IN THE RUINS
THIS AIN’T THE SUMMER OF LOVE
GOLDEN AGE OF LEATHER
BURNNIN FOR YOU
LIPS IN THE HILLS (Richie was great on the vocals for this one)
HARVEST MOON (one of my favorite rarities)
THE VIGIL
BUCK’S BOOGIE
THEN CAME THE LAST DAYS OF MAY (both Richie and Buck tore this one up!)
TRUE CONFESSIONS (tribute to Alan Lanier)
TATTOO VAMPIRE
GODZILLA (not quite the same without the Eric intro)
DON’T FEAR THE REAPER
ENCORE:
HARVESTER OF EYES
HOT RAILS TO HELL
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