04/09/1999 Moxy Fruvous, The Push Stars (Rochester, NY @ RIT Clark Gym)
By Eric | April 9, 1999 11:59 pm
This started the string of mediocre or worse RIT concerts. The Push Stars were okay, light rock, but every song sounded the same. Chris Trapper was the main guy in this band, and apparently has a decent solo career. Moxy Fruvous was entertaining, but I think they probably worked way better as a lawn concert, not a roomful of college kids. So I guess I appreciated them, but wasn’t overly thrilled.
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Tags: 1999, Moxy Fruvous, RIT Clark Gym, rochester, The Push Stars
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!
SKARHEAD & VANILLA ICE TOUR! 1999-WE HAD A GOOD TIME ON THE ROAD WITH ICE & HIS BAND. BOSTON MIKE RIP! @vanillaice pic.twitter.com/ldKwsPbXaQ
— DANNY DIABLO (@DannyDiablo) September 19, 2014
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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Tags: 1999, Dial 7, rochester, Skarhead, Vanilla Ice, Water Street Music Hall
03/27/1999 Econoline Crush, God’s Children (Buffalo, NY @ The Tralf)
By Eric | March 27, 1999 11:59 pm
I don’t recall a ton about this show, other than to say that this started Mary’s love of Trevor. I know we got in quite early and were no more than 2 feet away from the band all night. The band played all but one off of The Devil You Know, “Wicked” from Affliction, and “You Don’t Know What It’s Like”. The crowd was great, no pushing, no barrier(!), and the band sounded great! I do know it was nice seeing them in a small club versus on a huge stage at a festival.
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Tags: 1999, Buffalo, Econoline Crush, God’s Children, The Tralf
03/21/1999 Kid Rock, Staind (Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall)
By Eric | March 21, 1999 11:59 pm
We knew the show was happening, but weren’t really planning on going as it was a Sunday night. Kid Rock did a signing at the House of Guitars earlier in the day, so I went for the hell of it, and got a pretty sweet personalized autographed poster. Considering it was only 8 bucks a ticket, Mary and I decided we’d go after all, and I’m really glad we did!
I had also picked up a tape sampler from Staind, whom I’d vaguely remembered seeing at the Limp Bizkit Funhouse gig. Once we got into Water Street, however, I’d never forget them again. Staind made a hell of an impression on us. Between Mike’s spastic guitar playing, and the way Aaron switched between singing and screaming, it was right in my wheelhouse. Even despite Aaron staring at the wall for most of the set, rather than looking at the crowd. I got hooked. Dysfunction hadn’t been released yet (it’d be another three weeks or so), but they played a bunch of stuff from it. Judging from other setlists of that era, I’m guessing ours was the same, so most likely:
A Flat
Mudshovel
Spleen
Suffocate
Crawl
Just Go
Raw
So after being blown away by a band we didn’t even know was on the bill until day of, we got to see Kid Rock! I’d also seen him prior, stopping for about two seconds to watch him at Warped Tour the preceding summer. Fast-forwarding to the time of this show, “Welcome 2 The Party” had done nothing as a single, but “I Am The Bullgod” was finally getting the album some attention. “Bawitdaba” was two weeks away from being released as a single, so at this point Kid hadn’t had the big mainstream success yet. It didn’t matter, as I remember the place being rather full. Rock and the band sounded fantastic. I have no idea what he played or in what order, but I do remember being super-impressed with him and the band. At one point, someone tossed a beer bottle right at Kid Rock up on stage, hitting his guitar, and he looked on the verge of jumping off the stage to fight whoever did it. Unfortunately, Joe C was sick on this night, and didn’t perform, so I never did get to see him live. But all the articles about Rock are true, he has always put on a high-quality show, no matter how small the venue or the crowd.
I subsequently found out that there’s a live version of “Wasting Time” off of the German “Only God Knows Why” single that was recorded at this show!
I found a setlist via a bootleg tracklisting from the show in NYC three days later, I’m assuming it’s gotta be close to what we saw:
Intro
Devil Without A Cause
3 Sheets To The Wind
Welcome To The Party
I Am The Bullgod
Balls In Your Mouth
My Name Is Rock
Kid Mix (Kid Playing all Bands Instruments)
Somebody’s Gotta Feel This
Fist of Rage
I Got One For Ya
Wax The Booty
Wasting Time
Cowboy
Detroit Medley
Bawitdaba
Where U At Rock
Black Chick, White Guy
Only God Knows Why
Fuck Off
April 2020 – The super-awesome Liberated Tape Archive posted a video of essentially this set from a month later in Pittsburgh!
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Tags: 1999, Kid Rock, rochester, Staind, Water Street Music Hall
01/21/1999 Fuel, Velour (Rochester, NY @ Water Street Music Hall)
By Eric | January 21, 1999 11:59 pm
Ahh yes, the show that it feels like all of RIT attended. Everytime I talk to someone that’s into music that was in our incoming freshman class, I swear they all say they were at this show. This also marked the first time we’d come across our nemesis opening band… Velour. A local Buffalo band that we never, ever gave a chance to. We didn’t like them the first time, and we didn’t like them any subsequent time we saw them either.
I feel like this was Fuel hitting their stride on the first (major label) album cycle. They were awesome. Much like the Showplace gig, they ran through the whole album, plus this time we got to hear Sister Mary Innocent, Walk The Sky, and Sunday Girl. Interestingly enough, this turned out to be a rougher show crowd-wise than I would have expected. The “highlight” in that regard was was some drunk chick trying to sneak her way up front, and when some random guy wouldn’t let her in, she started clubbing him over the head! So grabbed her arm and stopped her, so naturally she spun around and was gonna try to club me! Perhaps the height scared her, because as soon as she started she just staggered off like nothing happened. It would prove to be the first of many shows that I would (or almost would) get into fights at. But the show itself? Fantastic.
One lonely pic from this show that I found here
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Tags: 1999, Fuel, rochester, Velour, Water Street Music Hall
11/27/1998 Deftones, Quicksand, Snapcase (Rochester, NY @ Main Street Armory)
By Eric | November 27, 1998 11:59 pm
This remains one of my favorite all-time shows. Came back to school the day after Thanksgiving, mostly for this, but also to move my stuff into my new dorm room (At RIT, Gleason Hall had just finished renovations, so all of us Fish Hall residents got transferred). I met up with my fellow dorm-dweller Dave (and his brother?), and before the show, hit up Burger King for dinner. Normally, this doesn’t even bear mentioning, however on this night, said Burger King RAN OUT OF BURGERS. No meat in the place. Haven’t experienced that before or since.
After that crisis, we got into the Armory a touch later than we wanted to, and so we missed the first song from Snapcase. Everything we did see was dynamite. I can’t remember any sort of setlist for them, but I definitely remember hearing Incarnation, plus this review says we saw Zombie Prescription, Caboose, and a Bad Brains cover (presumably “I”). I don’t remember a whole lot about Quicksand, other than to say they sounded good.
But everyone was waiting for the Deftones, and whooo boy did the crowd have some pent-up energy. Opening with Be Quiet And Drive and then into My Own Summer, into Root, and the crowd went ballistic. The guy in that other review says there were at least four pits that opened up, and I believe it. I was probably dead center, maybe 20 people deep, and a bunch of us went down in a heap. A touch scary, but everyone was cool and picked everyone back up. They sounded fantastic, and played a great mix between the two albums, including Teething! A personal highlight was Engine No. 9, during which I had managed to make it to the barrier, where among others, Chino shoved the mic right into my face for the last chorus of the song! For the last song of the main set, they did a really cool take on Weezer’s Say It Ain’t So, and did a raucous encore with Headup. Hell of a show.
These are stills from the video bootleg:
I know audio and video bootlegs of this show exist, but I’ve never been able to actually obtain them. If anyone wants to help me out with that endeavor, it’d be much appreciated!
I found the video! It cuts off during Engine No. 9 unfortunately, but three-quarters of a show is better than no show!
And the Setlist was as follows:
01. Be Quiet And Drive (far away)
02. My Own Summer
03. Root
04. Nosebleed
05. Mascara
06. Around the Fur
07. Lotion
08. 7 Words
09. Bored
10. Teething
11. Engine No.9
12. Dai The Flu
13. Say It Ain’t So (Weezer cover)
14. Headup
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Tags: 1998, Deftones, Main Street Armory, Quicksand, rochester, Snapcase
10/09/1998 Reel Big Fish, Spring Heeled Jack USA, Frenzal Rhomb (Rochester, NY @ RIT Clark Gym)
By Eric | October 9, 1998 11:59 pm
The first of many “ehh, okay” shows that RIT would bring over my college years. Not being all that into pop-punk or ska, this was a “go just to go” type of concert. As we’d quickly find out every band that ever came to RIT was wont to do, Frenzal Rhomb kept making the interpreter do the sign for the “F-word” all night. That’s all I remember about them, other than them being a punky-type band. Spring Heeled Jack were pretty good, pretty decent ska. Reel Big Fish were pretty entertaining, and considering I’d only ever heard “Turn The Radio Off”, they played a good number of tunes off that, including “She Has A Girlfriend Now”, “Beer”, and of course, “Sell Out”.
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Tags: 1998, Frenzal Rhomb, Reel Big Fish, RIT Clark Gym, rochester, Spring Heeled Jacks USA
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!
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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)
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Tags: 1998, Blue Cross Arena, Family Values, Ice Cube, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Orgy, Rammstein, rochester
08/30/1998 103.3 WEDG Edgefest: 2 Skinnee J’s, Sprung Monkey, Esthero, God Lives Underwater (Buffalo, NY @ LaSalle Park)
By Eric | August 30, 1998 11:59 pm
I do recall having to leave early, so I really only saw about half of the bands there. I also pretty much stayed at the one stage all day. Kicking things off (literally, they came out in karate uniforms!) was 2 Skinnee J’s. These guys were a blast. A little bit of Beastie Boys influence, but with zero seriousness, their rap-rock combo was fun. Sprung Monkey was pretty decent, naturally “Get Em Outta Here” was the only song I or anyone else knew. I had just seen Esthero at Summersault the week prior, and then the main band I was there to see: God Lives Underwater. It helped knowing the songs off of Space Age this time around, so this was marginally better than seeing them six months prior. Having to cut out early, I missed out on seeing 7 Mary 3 and Gravity Kills, among others.
One list I found says in addition to everyone listed above, also on the bill were: Possum Dixom, the Amazing Crowns, the Urge, Buffalo Tom, They Might Be Giants, Scary Chicken, Oui*73, Muscle Boy.
Topics: Concerts | Comments Off on 08/30/1998 103.3 WEDG Edgefest: 2 Skinnee J’s, Sprung Monkey, Esthero, God Lives Underwater (Buffalo, NY @ LaSalle Park)
Tags: 1998, 2 Skinnee J's, Buffalo, Edgefest, Esthero, God Lives Underwater, LaSalle Park, Sprung Monkey