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Days Of the New Concerts October 1997. Days of the New came through Oklahoma for two dates. October 7th at The Boar’s Head. October 8th at The Brink in Tulsa. Tickets were only five bucks. This was right when Days of the New was starting to break. Travis Meeks was still just a kid, the song had hit radio, and everything was beginning to explode around them. Jay remembers being a freshman in colleg...

Some backstage transportation stories are just awkward. At the Fayetteville Fair, Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick refused to ride in the same limo with the other band members. The fair was packed, and a police officer was ready to escort the limo out. But Rick would not get in. Jeff tried to talk him into it, but Rick still said no. So they compromised. Rick rode out in the front seat of the police...

Dinosaur Jr., TSO, & Flaming Lips Shows End 2007 December 2007 ended with a wild mix of shows. December 9th was Dinosaur Jr. Originally booked at the Diamond Ballroom, but low ticket sales moved it to The Conservatory. Back then, Oklahoma City was not really an alternative music town. It was more metal, rock, and blue collar. Tulsa was the stronger alternative market. Then December 22nd brough...

April 22nd at the Diamond Ballroom was Crazy Town, Saliva, and Stereomud. 436 people showed up. Crazy Town had the name, Saliva fit the early-2000s radio rock lane, and Stereomud had ties to Life of Agony. But the room still did not blow up. Then April 24th moved to The Other Side in Tulsa. Drowning Pool.  Slaves on Dope.  No One.  Element.  Hinge. Strong lineup on paper. But the number listed was...

July 1997 had a strong weekend of shows. July 25th at Bricktown Live was Ween. “Piss Up a Rope.” That one felt like a Darrell Baskins Mindcandy show, or possibly something Dave helped co-promote. Then two days later, July 27th, Collective Soul played the Diamond Ballroom. Sold out. 1,500 people. The Silent Parade Tour. Tickets were only $15, and Darla Hood was on the bill too. This was right when...

This story goes back before the Forte record. David Brown looks back on the early days of Oklahoma metal, the promotion parties, and the people who helped push the scene forward. The Forte parties brought attention, but they also brought a bill big enough to shock the bosses from Europe and Germany. Before Forte, there was Oliver Magnum. Hal had done the Oliver Magnum demo, and that connection hel...

David Allan Coe Sings Purple Rain David Allan Coe doing “Purple Rain” in Hawaii sounds impossible, but Bruce, his tour manager, says it happened. According to Bruce, Coe showed up to the venue with purple hair, wearing a long purple duster, and performed “Purple Rain” in its entirety. That is a visual you do not forget. The story ties back to Prince and how powerful that song became across every k...

May 2001 had a wild run of shows. First up was Clutch at The Other Side. Absolute fire. That was one of those shows people were proud to say they saw. Clutch never disappointed. Two days later, The Other Side had Girly Freak Show and Element. Then May 24th brought Insane Clown Posse, Mars, and Blaze Ya Dead Homie to the Diamond Ballroom. This was the first time ICP actually played and finished the...

Forte, Massacre Records, & Foundations Forum ’92 David Brown takes this story back to the early 90s metal business. Before Massacre Records and Foundations Forum, David wanted to be an engineer and producer. He went to Full Sail in Florida, got certified, and kept chasing the LA studio path. Then Forte called. The Oklahoma metal band had signed with Massacre Records, a German label, and wanted...

June 22, 1997. Matchbox 20 played The Boar’s Head. A 95X show. Only five bucks. That ticket price feels impossible now, but back then, it was just another club show on the calendar. There was even a cool backstage pass designed like a matchbox. Orbit was on the bill too, possibly a local band, and the room was part of that old Oklahoma concert scene where bands could come through right before ever...

Prince Says NO To The Flaming Lips This was the first time Jay ever saw The Flaming Lips cover “Purple Rain.” At the time, nobody knew the bigger story behind it. The Flaming Lips were on Warner Brothers, and the label was putting together a compilation where Warner artists covered other Warner artists. The Lips recorded a studio version of “Purple Rain” for it. But Prince never cleared it. He sai...

I Fell In A Manhole Meeting Dio Meeting Dio should already be a great story. But this one turned into a full Scooby-Doo moment. It happened behind The Roxy after a Dio show. Max was trying to get his stuff signed, and the buses were parked in the narrow alley behind the venue. It was dark. There was not much room. And there was a water meter hole waiting on him. Max stepped right into it. The cove...

Some runner stories are pure chaos. This one happened in downtown Ardmore. Aubrey’s car pulled up, and she jumped out saying, “Aubrey’s gonna kill me.” Across the street, Max and Jeff realized Jay was crawling underneath the car trying to pull out an orange traffic cone. She had hit the cone, heard the bump, and kept driving, thinking it would clear the wheels. It did not. The cone got wrapped und...

Rolling Stones 11/1/81 vs 11/1/97 November 1st is a serious Rolling Stones date. On 11/1/81, The Rolling Stones played the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Max was there. They had also played the night before on Halloween, in the rain. That 1981 tour was supposed to be one of those “farewell” moments, and Max saw The Stones 11 times that year, including four times in Texas in one week. The big memory from D...

Kid Sings Punk Rock With Murphy’s Law On His Birthday Murphy’s Law was on stage at The Other Side for a sold-out show with Clutch and VOD. No barricade. Right up front was a 10-year-old kid in Big Smith overalls. And it was his birthday. Jimmy Gestapo called him up on stage and asked if he wanted to sing with the band. The kid said yes, but he did not know the words. Jimmy told him, “Just sing wha...

Holding Rick Nielsen’s 5-Neck Guitar This happened in Wichita at inCahoots. Rick Nielsen’s famous five-neck guitar was sitting on a stand in the dressing room, and people could see it from the parking lot. One kid spotted it and could not stop staring. He kept saying how cool it was. The band had already left for the hotel, and the guitar was still sitting there. So Jeff told the kid to come over....

Some product names are too perfect. Tommy Chong had one called “Urine Luck.” Spelled U-R-I-N Luck. And once that name came up, the whole room lost it. It sounds like a joke. It sounds like something only Tommy Chong would be attached to. And that is exactly why it works. The conversation turns into everybody repeating the name, laughing at it, and making it even more ridiculous. Urine Luck. Once y...

April had a pretty cool run of shows in Oklahoma. April 10th at Bricktown Brewery was JGB. The Jerry Garcia Band members. Jerry Garcia had already passed by then, so it was not Jerry himself, but still, having members of that band upstairs at the Brewery is pretty wild. Standing room only. Tickets were $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Then the Brewery kept rolling. April 11th was The Verve Pipe...

Three weeks into Hollywood Recording Studios, the first band in front of him was Guns N’ Roses. Not a bad welcome to LA. They were cutting demos for Spencer Proffer, who was deciding whether he wanted to sign the band. Several labels had already passed, which looks like a massive mistake now. The music was there. The chaos was there. And according to the story, the wild Guns N’ Roses studio legend...

Max only saw Van Halen twice. The first was the 2008 comeback tour at the Ford Center. That was a huge moment. Then came the later run with Kool & The Gang, which sounds like a strange pairing, but it worked. Max saw Kool & The Gang with Van Halen twice. Once at the BOK Center in Tulsa. And once at what was then Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City. That is what makes concert memories...

CAKE is one of those bands that surprises people live. They look like normal guys on stage, then the groove hits, the horn kicks in, and the whole room locks in. Max calls them one of the best live bands he has ever seen. There is even an autographed poster from that Diamond Ballroom show hanging in The Diamond. The conversation also turns to Fashion Nugget , which still holds up enough for Josh t...

This is what happens when the ticket guy forgets the tickets. Max was on a hard run, headed to the Red Hot Chili Peppers show, and somehow left his moneybag at home. The tickets were inside it. Total rookie mistake. Everybody looked at him like, “How are you going to fix this?” Luckily, Max had pictures of the tickets on his phone. He showed them at the box office, gave them his ID, they checked t...

Jeff Lynne’s ELO & ELO II Jeff and Max were getting ready to head to Dallas to see Jeff Lynne’s ELO at the American Airlines Center. When you have worked in the concert business and seen so many bands, certain shows still stand out as ones you do not want to miss. That was this one. They started talking about how many times they had actually seen ELO. Max remembered the Out of the Blue tour wi...

December 15th at the Diamond Ballroom. Sponge played to 444 people with Ruth Ruth and Red 5 on support. Max calls Sponge one of his all-time favorite bands, and Vinnie Dombroski gets a lot of respect in this story. Great songwriter. Incredible vocalist. Years later, that connection carried into Texas Hippie Coalition. When Max first started managing THC, they ended up in Detroit at Vinnie’s studio...

September 1997 had a wild mix of shows. September 19th, Flotsam and Jetsam played Bricktown Live with Nevermore. Then September 21st, Leon Russell returned to The Boar’s Head. A few weeks later, Days of the New came through for two Oklahoma dates. October 7th at The Boar’s Head. October 8th at The Brink in Tulsa. This was early Days of the New, when Travis Meeks was still just a kid and the band w...