When I first thought about how I wanted to present the History section, the one thing I knew was that I wanted to document people's experiences of seeing Blue Oyster Cult live, and the best way to do that seemed to me to be to base the structure around the framework of the timeline provided by the Giglopaedia...
But what I didn't think of was: what do I do if someone sends me recollections of a gig that they don't know the date of? Where do I put those?
From now on - the answer will be: here!
Obviously, the intention is to one day get dates for all these gigs - or failing that - even just a year would do - so that I can move them from this page onto the appropriate History page. If you can help in this endeavour, please let me know!!
| 001 | Sherwood Country Club | Indianapolis | Indiana |
I saw this post (from 2001) on CigarFamily.com in a thread about Soft White Underbelly:
Saw them at the Sherwood Country Club in Indianapolis about 1971. Great concert. I remember walking out and seeing the interior of a VW Beetle on fire. (wonder how that happened?)
I also remember later that night being escorted out of the city of Warsaw by the local authorities. hehe You just brought back a memory for me.
Would appreciate some help with dating this a bit more accurately...
| 002 | Walsh Jesuit High School | Cuyahoga Falls | Ohio |
I saw this post (from 2004) on audioasylum.com in a thread about Glass Harp:
Keaggy was a local boy, so I had a chance to see them at Walsh Jesuit High School--oddly enough, they opened for Blue Oyster Cult. It was a strange pairing!!
So, a Blue Oyster Cult gig - presumably in the early 70s - headlining over Glass Harp. But - if this indeed did happen - when could it have been? I contacted the Glass Harp Facebook page to see if they might have any ideas...
My name is Bob Brandt, and I work with Glass Harp. As it turns out, just last year we did a fairly thorough inventory of all known Glass Harp concert history. Still waiting to post all that online, but, for now, here's the list of when we know Glass Harp played at Walsh Jesuit HS. Obviously, it may be incomplete (although I have no knowledge of any BOC show there):
I asked two members of the band about a show with BOC. They have differing opinions whether or not such a show took place.
Daniel Pecchio (Glass Harp bass player), says he said he has no recollection of ever playing with BOC anywhere. In addition, it was his contention that in those days, a typical high school (where concerts were funded by the student body, an independent promoter, or other local organization if school wasn't in session) would likely not have the money to present two such acts.
Conversely, John Sferra (Glass Harp drummer) says "...I have a vague memory of Blue Oyster Cult *opening*. Could have been with Burks and Randy." ("Burks" being guitarist Tim Burks who replaced Phil Keaggy in August 1972, and "Benson" being violinist Randy Benson who was with Glass Harp from approximately Dec. 1972-Oct. 1973).
As to the possibility that Glass Harp would be opening for BOC at that venue: by the summer of 1971, Glass Harp was very much a headliner... albeit in a very limited patch of the U.S... but indeed Cuyahoga Falls, OH would be in the heart of that. It was only outside Ohio/Pennsylvania where they were still a support act most of the time, at least until late 1972 into 1973 (more on that in a bit).
Here's what else comes to mind:
While the music from that point on was arguably more complex and engaging to discerning ears, the band's popularity waned going into 1973 (not only around the country, but also back home in Ohio). It's also important to note that even some longtime fans didn't follow the post-Phil Keaggy version of Glass Harp as closely as before, so the later incarnation(s) aren't as well-documented (even by those who have done a lot of research/collecting).
It seems to me that by 1973 (given my limited knowledge of their history), BOC would be much more likely than at any time before that to show up at a high school in Northeast Ohio. It was also during that year that Glass Harp was in an odd spot; they were just as likely to headline at an area school for the local faithful as they would be to support an up and coming touring group such as BOC.
December 2, 1973 is the last known Glass Harp show before Keaggy/Pecchio/Sferra began sporadic reunions in the late-80's, and then more frequently in the past decade.
With one band member saying "no", another one saying "maybe", and with nothing else to go on (advertisements, concert listings, posters, etc) besides a random post on a message board, this is a really tough one. My best guess (as laid out above) is that if this show took place at all it happened in 1973, wasn't heavily advertised, and has just slipped a lot of folks' memories. Hopefully, someone else out there remembers more.
| 003 | Cape Cod Coliseum | South Yarmouth | Maryland |
I saw an archived interview (from 1999) with Charlie Farren, the former singer with the Joe Perry Project during 1980-1982, in which he said:
As for touring, I know you toured with Blue Oyster Cult:
Oh yeah! I forgot about that. Yeah, we did. We did some touring with ZZ Top, but we also played a lot of our own shows...
With Joe's band, it seemed as though we'd play five or six nights with Blue Oyster Cult, then three nights with Alice Cooper, four cities with Rush, three cities with Ozzy, three more cities with Rush, and then we'd do a bunch on our own.
We also did some shows with the Kinks, we did a lot of shows with ZZ Top; we did some shows with Nazareth and Judas Priest. So we were really bouncing around. I remember when we played with Ozzy, Def Leppard was the opening act.
So... "5 or 6 nights with BOC" to find... well, the poor quality advert above which I got from a now offline and archived fan site fan site, says 29 Dec, but what year? And is it part of the "5 or 6 nights" mentioned in the interview?
I decided to check out the other gigs he mentioned in the same piece - if he did "5 or 6 nights" with BOC, then "three nights with Alice Cooper" and then "four cities with Rush", maybe if I can get dates for those other shows, I can "reverse engineer" approximate dates for the BOC ones?
Rush
The PowerWindows site gives these dates for Rush with the Joe Perry Project:
2 July 1981: Met Center. Bloomington MN
03 July 1981: Met Center. Bloomington MN
04 July 1981: Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy WI
05 July 1981: Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy WI
Alice Cooper
The sickthingsuk site gives these dates for Alice Cooper with the Joe Perry Project:
08 July 1981: Wendler Arena, Saginaw MI [ also with Spider ]
10 July 1981: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit MI [ also with Spider ]
11 July 1981: Joe Louis Arena, Detroit MI [ also with Spider ]
ZZ Top
Ken's ZZ Top Tour Dates site gives these dates for ZZ Top with the Joe Perry Project:
27 Aug 1981: Civic Center, Springfield MA
31 Aug 1981: Cumberland County Civic Center, Portland, ME
01 Sep 1981: Spectrum, Philadelphia PA [ also with Johnny Van Zant ]
09 Sep 1981: Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinnati OH
Ozzy
The ozzyhead.com site lists a series of Ozzy gigs between 2 Aug 1981 through to 13 Sept 1981 of gigs supported by Def Leppard. The Joe Perry Project isn't mentioned but should logically fall within this time frame.
If you apply the logic that they're an MA-based band, then the only gig in that run that ticks that particular box is:
09 Aug 1981: Cape Cod Coliseum, South Yarmouth MA
No particular reason why it has to be an MA show, of course - I'm just guessing...
Anyway - that's the context that one would have thought any gigs with BOC would slot into. Summer 1981... Therefore, my guess for the JPP/BOC gigs would be sometime in 1981, maybe between June and Sept/Oct.
But that bloody advert above is for 29 December!! My best guess, therefore, for this particular gig is 1981 as that's only 2/3 months out from my initial estimate.
The known BOC giglists include a pretty intensive 2 month tour with Foghat between September and November of 1981, then a few sporadic shows. After Christmas, there are some NY, NJ and PA shows, but the 29th of December is currently "free", so a Cape Cod show could slot right in here...
I've read reports of shows with the Joe Perry Project too... trouble is, I have absolutely NO memory of JPP ever being on a BOC show... but an awful lot of folks seem to think he did...
Anybody out there with any info to help me sort this out, because I'm about to mention two other JPP shows with BOC...
| 004 | Civic Center | Bangor | Maine |
I saw this post (from 2008) on heatinghelp.com in a thread on What was your first concert?:
Joannie August 21, 2008 @ 10:28 AM
My first concert was Blue Oyster Cult, opened by Joe Perry Project, at the Civic Center in Bangor, Maine. I talked to Joe that day!!!"
My guess, again, would be sometime in 1981...
| 005 | Civic Arena | Pittsburgh | Pennsylvania |
I saw this post (from 2008) on telecaster.com in a thread called What was the first REAL concert?:
BrianD January 19th, 2008, 02:10 PM
My first REAL concert was Joe Perry Project / Foghat / Blue Oyster Cult at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena. When I made it back home ( on a "school night" ) my Mom was waiting with this line: " You were out seeing that Godzilla, weren't you?" Apparently the nightly news showed a 10 second clip of the drummer wearing a Godzilla head mask during his solo."
Regarding Pittsburgh Civic Arena - well, there was a Whitford St. Holmes/Foghat/BOC gig there on 12 Sept 1981 - obviously, Brad Whitford is an Aerosmith connection, but I've seen no mention of Joe Perry playing this gig in their place, so it's a conundrum...
Could there have been ANOTHER Pittsburgh Civic Arena with Foghat (and the Joe Perry Project) in this time-frame?