Blue Öyster Cult conquers Louisville’s Bourbon Hall with local support from Rock Station.
Many Louisvillians had today’s date circled on their calendar as soon as the show announcement. The mighty Blue Öyster Cult were invading Bourbon Hall! With a career spanning over an incredible 5 decades, 13 studio albums under their belt, and worldwide record sales of over 24 million records worldwide including 7 million records in the United States alone there is little argument about the pedigree of BÖC and their music. The evening proved to be a celebration of BÖC music and was welcomed by a great turnout of music fans.
One by one front men and original members singer-guitarists Eric Bloom, and Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, along with longtime guitarist Richie Castellano, bassist Danny Miranda, and drummer Jules Radino, took their places on stage, greeted by a significant roar from the crowd. Quickly settling in, BÖC started off the evening with “The Red & The Black,” and “Before the Kiss, a Redcap,” before Eric invited everyone to raise a beer and sing along to “Golden Age of Leather” followed immediately by the first of their mega-hits “Burnin’ for You” ending with a huge cheer from the appreciative crowd.
“ME 262,” the lone track from the Secret Treaties album followed by “Shooting Shark”, a rocking performance of “The Vigil” from the Mirrors album featured an epic guitar jam, sci-fi favorite “E.T.I. (Extra Terrestrial Intelligence)” from the Agents of Fortune album and the instrumental “Buck’s Boogie” brought us well into the middle of tonight’s performance. It was great to see virtually the entire venue having a great time while riveted to what was unfolding before everyone.
Taking a quick minute to address the crowd Eric indicated that they are going to deviate from the set-list a little and play a few songs that they normally do not play as the guys started with the psychedelic sounds of “Screams,” along with “She’s as Beautiful as a Foot” from their 1972 self-titled debut album along with “Unknown Tongue” from 1980’s Cultösaurus Erectus album.
With only a few songs left in their main set, it was back to regularly scheduled programming as “Then Came the Last Days of May” with another crazy good guitar jam once again drawing a huge road from the crowd followed by the hard rocking “Tattoo Vampire”. A rumble from afar seemed to get louder and more definite as it got closer and closer as the instantly identifiable footsteps of “Godzilla” introduced the next song. Dedicating the last song of the main set to the late, great Marty Balin ( lead singer of Jefferson Airplane) Blue Öyster Cult launched into “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” closing out an epic main set.
With cheers of BÖC getting louder and louder by the second, the guys came out for their two-song encore. Once again Eric Bloom addressed the crowd, “We don’t come to Louisville every day. Thank You for your support” as “Hot Rails to Hell” and the anthem-like “Cities on Flame With Rock and Roll” closed out a momentous evening with true legends of Rock and Roll – Blue Öyster Cult.
Providing the main support this evening were Louisville locals Rock Station. After a short delay while the sound guys worked out a few system kinks, Rock Station rocked Bourbon hall with a popular set of classic/arena rock radio hits including Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”, Kansas’s “Carry on Wayward Son” before ending with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band “Blinded by the Light”.
