The Charter One Pavilion(3/5): This venue tends to feel a little jury-rigged despite being designed explicitly for music purposes. At this show, in addition to the built in bleacher, there were rows of folding chairs in what is normally part of the pit and then there was a smaller pit gated off in front of it. The barriers and seats were all completely temporary and security was minimal. Which worked to my advantage as I ended up standing in the isle.
Every time I’ve been to this venue, the merch booth and concessions booths have been very hodgepodge and the crowd management was poor. With the names that come through there, I’m frankly surprised it hasn’t been addressed.
To be honest, this venue always has festival feeling too it, except it’s not as well organized and set up as most festivals.
The sound quality is decent, however and oftentimes the names they bring in make up for the mediocrity outside the amphitheater itself, as does the ability to see surprisingly well from most locations. Another nice thing is that the merch booth does take credit cards.
And every show I’ve been to at this venue there have been signings.
On to the show:
The crowd: (3/5) It felt like a festival crowd, very laid back and mildly indifferent about the openers. They did pick up significantly during the show but even then it wasn’t the fury I’ve seen in other crowds.
The Goo Goo Dolls were sadly the only band I got to really pay attention to due to some logistic issues. However I did snag a signed ticket from the Spill Canvas.
The Goo Goo Dolls(4/5) I admit I had to focus hard to get past the huge amount of nostalgia and review. I have been following The Goo Goo Dolls since 1996 and have been to shows of there several times, everytime was wonderful.
The Goo Goo Dolls have an interesting dynamic because they have two front men with two relatively different styles. Johnny Rzeznik is the more predominant front man and favors pop-rock vocals and Robby Takac on the secondary lead has more of a punk-rock flavor to his songs and distinctive voice.
Rzeznik writes the majority of the lyrics, which is what drew me to the band when I was fifteen. Their music spans from irreverent punk to loves songs by way of hope and despair.
It is a deep pleasure to see a band whose core members have been together for so long. Rezeznik and Takac founde the band in 1986 and the newest member , drummer Mike Malinin joined in 1995, just after Boy Named Goo debuted. The dynamic is wonderful between the two front men especially, and between both artists and the audience. Rzeznik has a stronger presence, however and is more popular amongst the fans. Personally though, Robby has grown on me significantly over the years and I find his gremlin like appearance and voice utterly charming.
And there was a saxophone dueling with two guitars. In a rock song.
They haven’t released a lot of new material since 2006, so that could have been disappointing for some fans. I should take off points for this but the fact is they put on the same wonderful quality show they always have, so who am I to complain if they take five years to write an album? And according to wikipedia they went back to the studio out of professionalism, to make the album even better.
And based on the few songs they did play off that album--we haven’t seen anything yet.
I went into this review trying to be honest and analytical, but the truth is Johnny Rzeznik has been an inspiration to me since I was young and I owe a large part of my emotional survival to The Goo Goo dolls. It was an emotionaly charged, energetic show and I loved every minute. Well, done, guys, well fucking done.
