09/29/1998 Fuel, Ednaswap (Buffalo, NY @ Showplace Theater)
By Eric | September 29, 1998 11:59 pm
[There’s a Buffalo News article that also mentions Ruth Ruth, but I have zero recollection of that band at all.]
The backstory and personal anecdotes for this show far, far, far outweigh the actual show and review. The nutshell version goes a little something like this: At this particular time, I’m still playing “trade petty disparaging message with previous HS girlfriend” on the OLP message board, while hanging out with Mary and Kelley at college, both from the Buffalo area as well. Fuel show gets announced, I ask both if they want to go, and I suspect they said yes partially because they wanted to see the band, and partially because they were in tune with the message board sniping and figured they’d have some fun (we knew the ex would be in attendance). So we head down the Thruway, get in, and during the entirety of the opener, Ednaswap (who I thought were terrible, I might add), we catch my ex’s eyes with me having a girl on either arm, and a totally disgusted look on her face. Night made before Fuel even came out!
Fun fact: Ednaswap are the original artists of the song “Torn”, which we all know much better as covered by Natalie Imbruglia. I’m guessing they played it, but I really have no idea.
As I recall, Fuel played just about everything off of Sunburn, plus a Beatles cover of “Revolution”. They sounded excellent, but truth be told, we were half paying attention to the band and half paying attention to my ex. So who messed with who, really?
Postscript 1: After the show we met Kelley’s then-boyfriend out to eat, and upon heading back to RIT by getting on the Thruway at Transit Rd, I promptly got on westbound instead of eastbound and had to do a U-turn at the water tower. Smooth move.
Postscript 2: All’s well that ends well, 17 years later, I’m still friends and acquaintances with everyone, including that ex!
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 09/29/1998 Fuel, Ednaswap (Buffalo, NY @ Showplace Theater)
Tags: 1998, Buffalo, Ednaswap, Fuel, Showplace Theater
09/22/1998 Family Values: Korn, Rammstein, Ice Cube, Limp Bizkit, Orgy (Rochester, NY @ Blue Cross Arena)
By Eric | September 22, 1998 11:59 pm
This one was a dandy… A couple of non-related firsts related to this show also: my first show as a college student (and made more than a couple friends jealous!), and I’m pretty sure this was the first real event since the War Memorial was renovated and newly-christened as the Blue Cross Arena.
Speaking of firsts, it was also the first show Orgy ever played together as a band. Hardly anyone knew who they were (I think Stitches may have *just* been starting to get played on the radio), so needless to say, the crowd was a bit lifeless for them. Partly due to that, and partly due to who was on next.
Orgy setlist: Dissention, Gender, Pantomime, Fetisha, Stitches, Blue Monday, Revival. I couldn’t tell you if Jon Davis came out for Revival or not.
The natives were getting restless by this point, as Rochester had a pretty rabid Limp Bizkit fanbase. The place went predictably nuts when they came out, and stayed that way through the whole set. Especially because Faith was in heavy rotation by this point, everyone knew who they were, not just the die-hards. Made for a fun, jumpy crowd, who of course went even more jumpy when they closed with Jump Around.
LB setlist: Cambodia, Pollution, Counterfeit, Thieves, Nobody Loves Me, Stuck, Leech, Faith, Jump Around.
To bring it down a notch (barely), Ice Cube was up next, and having little to no exposure to live rap (save for Snoop at Lollapalooza the year before), I was wholly unprepared for the amount of bass that would be shaking my entire body. Ho. Lee. Shit. There were times I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to breathe. It was fun (!), but it was also a WTF moment for sure. Cube and his hype man WC did a great job imploring the decidedly non-diversified crowd to move while playing mostly big hits. I don’t know the whole setlist, but we did get Check Yo’ Self, Fuck Dying, It Was a Good Day, Fuck tha Police, and Straight Outta Compton.
Then the curiosity part of the show… we’d all heard about Rammstein’s stage show, which included a ton of fire-related props. The music was cool too, but let’s face it, everyone wanted to see the pyro show. With rumors and legends of fire departments being called, shutting down shows, etc., everyone wanted to see this. For the most part, it didn’t disappoint. I remember being in the front quarter of the floor, and you could feel the heat off their pyro. People right in the front couple rows got sprayed with the lead singers “appendage” as well. During the last song one of the guys had what essentially looked like a flamethrower. Yikes. Quite the experience. Like I said, the music was pretty decent too, although most everyone had no idea what they were saying, and beyond Du Hast, most of us didn’t know any of the other songs either. But it was fun!
Rammstein setlist: Rammstein, Bestrafe mich, Weißes Fleisch, Sehnsucht, Asche zu Asche, Heirate mich, Du riechst so gut, Du hast, Bück dich, Wollt ihr das Bett in Flammen sehen?
And someone has the whole set (minus Heirate mich for some reason) on YouTube!
Looking back, I feel like this era was Korn at their peak. Follow The Leader was a great album (much better than Life is Peachy if you ask me), and they were on top of their game in the live setting as well. They started off with It’s On!, followed by only a snippet of Freak on a Leash, since it hadn’t been released as a single yet… they essentially didn’t play it! They brought out Ice Cube to do Children of the Korn, and then launched into Wicked, which was exactly that. The Shot Liver Medley was obviously a highlight, I mean, what’s not to love when you cram all the cool parts of like six songs into one long mosh fest? The encore was pretty much the best part of the show, however. They utilized the revolving stage, and there were dual setups of every instrument, allowing all the members of both Korn and Limp Bizkit to perform All In The Family on stage at the same time. Amazingly, it held together and the song worked. This show is still one of the highlights of my concert-going career, 16 years later!
Korn setlist (I’d swear they played Got The Life also, but setlist.fm says no.):
It’s On!
Twist (preceded by short Freak on a Leash Intro)
Chi
Children of the Korn / Wicked (with Ice Cube)
A.D.I.D.A.S.
Shot Liver Medley (Shoots and Ladders / Justin / Predictable / Ball Tongue / Divine / Kill You)
B.B.K.
Blind
Dead Bodies Everywhere (preceded by snippet of I Ain’t Goin Out Like That)
Faget
All in the Family (with Limp Bizkit)
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 09/22/1998 Family Values: Korn, Rammstein, Ice Cube, Limp Bizkit, Orgy (Rochester, NY @ Blue Cross Arena)
Tags: 1998, Blue Cross Arena, Family Values, Ice Cube, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Orgy, Rammstein, rochester