York, PA Fair
Sept 10, 1997
York, PA
This is hilarious!
Like Ben Haas, I also attended that show. I was living in Harrisburg at
the time and the weather wasn't just 'bad' that day--it was like a
monsoon! I thought I was going to die on the highway driving to York
that night in high winds and torrential downpours! I couldn't believe my
luck when the weather cleared up less than 20 minutes before the Goo's
took the stage (about the time I got to the show). I was also wondering
why they took the stage before 7M3 (who I also skipped seeing), even
thought the ticket stated that the Goo's were headlining.
They mostly played songs from ABNG and SSCW, starting with "Stop The
World". I wrote down the setlist, but I don't have it on me right now.
Also (off the top of my head): Fallin Down, On The Lie, Cuz You're Gone,
Domino (I think), We Are The Normal, Lazy Eye, Naked, Long Way Down,
Flat Top, Only One, Name (of course), Eyes Wide Open, Slave Girl--it was
just one amazing song after another. Non-stop fun and energy!
The show was amazing! Just the three guys out there playing and having
a great old time. Johnny must have the largest collection of
glitter-painted Gibson Les Pauls of any rocker! He also pulled out what
looked like a homemade Fender Strat (with black tape all over the body
and the word 'Boing!' in yellow block letters between the pickups).
I remember Johnny talking about how "Lazy Eye" "did better than the
movie", how much "Batman & Robin" sucked, and that he "got scared
playing Lazy Eye 'cause it sounded so creepy, like 'Type O Negative' and
shit". At another point some girl threw a bra on stage and Johnny began
hamming it up as he mimed how girls put on their bras by clipping them
on and turning them around--he wore it over his T-shirt for another song
or two ("Now that I'm in touch with my feminine side...") The other
funny story was Johnny talking about how he dreaded that his career was
over when he once heard "Name" in a supermarket at 3am while he was
buying groceries (a Muzak version maybe?) Robbie piped in, "Yeah, and
you were probably just walking around, half asleep, thinking 'Rutabaga?
Rutabaga. Rutabaga? Rutabaga.'". It was great to see them having so
much fun on stage.
One thing that pissed me (and seemingly the band) off was the
over-zealous security guards and cops on the side of the stage. It was
like they were expecting some kind of riot--I think over a dozen
security guys were there. Little bit of overkill, I thought. While the
band played, a few kids were crowd-surfing and a few even got on stage,
but then would immediately jump back off into the crowd, before the cops
could get them, which just made the band and the crowd laugh. But at
one point, one particular cop was getting really anxious to nail this
one kid that kept getting moved closer to the stage. So much so that
the cop basically charged on-stage to try to pull the kid out of the
crowd. Johnny fired him a dirty look and the cop went away, much to the
crowds approval. I mean, take a pill you stupid bozo! The crowd was
totally well-behaved and that cop's attitude was completely
unjustified. I mean, I'm 29 and most of the crowd around me was about
16-18 or so, but I could tell that there were no troublemakers around.
Everyone was there to enjoy the show.
This was the second time I'd seen them, the first being when they
opening for Bush in Milwaukee in '96 I think it was. I remember being
so pissed at that Bush show because the sound was horrible for the
Goo's. I've done a little sound engineering and _I_ could've done a
better job at that show. The York, PA show, however, SOUNDED GREAT. So
much so that I complimented their sound engineer afterwards...and that
made him pretty happy. At the same time a girl was asking what album
the SSCW songs were off and I told her what the album cover looked like
and what the name of it was.
Great show. They were all really tight and had a great time, as did the
crowd. Can't wait to see them again live!