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04/01/1999 Vanilla Ice, Dial 7, Skarhead (Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall)

By Eric | April 1, 1999 11:59 pm

Of any of the concerts I’ve attended, this one ranks right up there for the “you saw WHO???” reaction. Couldn’t have happened on a better day either. April Fools Day!

The genesis of attending this goes back to early in my freshman year of college. A buddy of mine called me into his room, plays what we’d later know as “Too Cold”, and says, “Who do you think covered this??” I had no idea, and he gleefully told me, “HE DID!” We made a small bet to see who could come back with the whole “Hard To Swallow” album over Thanksgiving break. I have no idea if Mike even tried, but I found it at Record Theater in the used bin for $5 and bought it. And it’s not half-bad! Considering this was the era of my getting into all things nu-metal, this fit right in. So once I found out A) Ice was touring, and B) he was coming to Water Street, I kinda had to go.

So for the show itself, Mary and I figured it would be dead, and no one would be there. Holy crap were we wrong. The place was legitimately SOLD OUT. We waited forever to get in, and once we did and got up front, we were a little unprepared for the first opener. Skarhead was a true NYC hardcore band, and as you’d expect, a giant pit opened up. In the ensuing mayhem Mary ended up with a black eye! Whoops. She was a trooper though; we never left the front!

Once Skarhead was done, Dial-7 was the next band up. While their rap/rock/funk was pretty decent (like a much lighter version of (hed)pe), it felt like their set took FOREVER. Every time we thought they were done, “we got one more for ya!”

Finally it was Vanilla Ice time. The stage was packed with band members and gear, and they put on a hell of a show! Naturally Too Cold / Ice Ice Baby was the highlight, but the whole set was fun, they took it old-school towards the end, and Ice even did some scat/beat-boxing in the middle of the set. I didn’t know what to expect, but the show beat my expectations! The guy actually can perform. Plus the fact that it was a full house helped, and as I recall most everyone was into it, whether just for the nostalgia factor, or for the new stuff. Despite the openers, we had ourselves a blast, and one of our better concert stories!

Wikipedia says that the bass player for this tour was Scott Shriner, who has been the bass player in Weezer since 2001. That’s a bit of a genre switch!

There’s little media available online anywhere from this tour, but here’s a couple of tidbits I’ve come across:

SNAFU from Seattle sometime in 1999:

Too Cold from the same show:

An MTV News report about the tour!

setlist.fm only has one setlist from this tour (15 days later in Minnesota), but I’ve got to imagine it’s pretty close to what we saw as well:
The Horny Song
S.N.A.F.U.
Living
Too Cold
A.D.D.
Stompin’ Through the Bayou
Fuck Me
Beat Box
Zero
Scars
Prozac
Ice Ice Baby

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