Thanks to my buddy Karie for the free ticket, him and I ended up going to the Blue Oyster Cult show at River Cree Casino just on the outskirts of Edmonton. This was my second time seeing BOC in concert, the last time being in 1991.
Opening the show was local band Punch Drunk Cabaret, a steampunk (whatever that means) rockabilly three piece band that did absolutely nothing for me. After a couple of songs I went out for a few smokes.
Now it was time for Long Island, New York's classic rockers Blue Oyster Cult. When I got invited to this show the first ting I did was to see who is actually still in the band. To my surprise it was nice to see that founding members Buck Dharma on lead guitar/vocals (76 years old) and Eric Bloom (79 years old) on guitar/keyboard and vocals as well. Rounding out the band were Danny Miranda on bass who has been in and out of the band since 1995, Richie Castellano on guitar and keyboards who has been with the band since 2004 and finally Jules Radino on drums also in the band since 2004.
By the time BOC came on I would say the venue was about half full, so maybe about a thousand people at the most. This was there first show of 2024 making up for there postponed show here that was scheduled for December 2023.
The band came out firing on all cylinders, they were tight and sounded great. I was surprised how good Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma still sound on vocals and guitar. And Richie Castellano is a monster on the guitar, one of his solos was really fucking good.
With a discography of 14 albums the band had a lot of songs to choose from to play live. And in my opinion I thought they chose some great songs. Including "Stairway To The Stars" and "Then Came the Last Days of May" from their 1972 debut album. A couple of songs from their 1974 album Secret Treaties, "Career Of Evil" and "Astronomy". They also played the song "Burnin' For You" from their 1981 album Fire of Unknown Origin. I have heard this song many times and guess I never realized that it is a BOC song. I fucking hate that song, maybe I always just tried to forget that it is a song of theirs. Nonetheless, that was my sign to use the washroom and get another beer. And of course the band had to play "Godzilla" and "Don't Fear The Reaper". Which went over like gangbusters, the audience ate that shit up. Another song from the 1977 album Spectres they played was "Golden Age of Leather". All and all it was a fun night out with some great songs. The show was way better then I was expecting. Good times!!!
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