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Summer 2004 was a blur of stacked weekends and split-city decisions. July 8th, 2004 — 7Mary3 at Bricktown Live with Headroom and Pulltoy. That was the era where some names were still moving tickets, even if they were past their radio peak. Bricktown Live was still pulling solid $15–$16 nights in a tight room. Those were great prices for real lineups. Then July 9th — Rooney, Straylight Run, and Ozm...

This was Edgefest. Not the other downtown outdoor Evanescence show — this was the real Edgefest lineup: Evanescence  Mudvayne  Cold  Blue October  Smile Empty Soul  Revis  Fanzeen (Tulsa band with a British lead singer) Stacked bill. Outdoor. Packed. Wall-to-wall people. Merch was flying. Jeff and Sean were selling. I was responsible for checking in merch and counting money. It was nonstop. No bre...

After the Devil’s Daughter video shoot with Shotgun Rebellion and Jesse Jane, there was one conversation that had to happen. Talking to Mom. Trying to explain: “Look… it’s not what you think.”  “It was acting.”  “It was a performance.” And honestly, once you start explaining a church-set rock video involving Jesse Jane, you realize pretty quickly there’s only so far that conversation can go. At so...

Go back to the ‘60s and ‘70s and look at the old flyers. Santana  Chicago  Foghat Or: Aerosmith  The J. Geils Band  Ten Years After  New Riders of the Purple Sage Those bills were wild. Rock. Blues. Psychedelic. Country-rock. All on one stage. Promoters like Bill Graham were known for mixing it up. Genre purity wasn’t the point. Energy was. Fast forward to now. You’ve got: Anthrax  Black Label Soc...

Twiztid & ZZ Top x2 Mid-September was a wild swing in genres. September 15th at Bricktown Live — Twiztid and Anybody Killa. Different crowd. Different energy. Juggalo scene. Paint. Chaos outside the venue before doors. That was the night Lisa was running. Instructions were simple: clean it up or you’re not coming in. Trash on the lot wasn’t flying. You couldn’t leave that kind of mess sitting...

Staind, Cold, Red Hot Chili Peppers & Snoop Dogg Shows June 2003 was a blur. June 10th, 2003 — Staind and Cold at the Bricktown Event Center. That was peak momentum. One show ends, the next one loads in. Chef catering. Mark Lemon. Production dialed in. Bricktown Event Center was firing on all cylinders. Cold was strong then. Still are. Staind? Aaron Lewis has always been polarizing, but at tha...

Jesse Jane Is on Drowning Pool’s Backstage Pass Going back through old laminates and backstage passes will bring back some wild memories. One of them? Drowning Pool backstage. Cain’s Ballroom date. Bricktown date. And printed right there among Oklahoma’s “finest” was Jesse Jane. And this wasn’t random. Because at that same time, there was the Devil’s Daughter video with Shotgun Rebellion. 3130 Stu...

August 2, 2003. Bile  Nocturne  Blunt Force Trauma  Lowlife On paper, it looked aggressive. Underground. Heavy. In reality? It had loss written all over it. Twenty years later you can laugh about it. Back then, it wasn’t funny. It was one of those nights where you could hear your dad’s voice in your head saying, “I told you so. Don’t do it.” And there goes the savings. The only reason Bile got boo...

At that time, Rascal Flatts wasn’t just big. They were one of the biggest country bands in America. Arena-level draw. Major production. Real money on the line. And here’s the situation. We’re in Oklahoma. No long résumé of massive shows behind us. No built-in credibility. When that contract comes in for a band that size, it’s not automatic. You don’t just get handed that show. You have to talk. Yo...

All hell broke loose at the Diamond Ballroom. Superjoint Ritual headlining Madd Maxx’s Metal Bash. Not the shortened Superjoint era. This was early. First album. Raw. Violent. Loud. Lineup stacked. Strapping Young Lad  Spooky Fruit  Superjoint Ritual About 459 people in the building, but it felt like triple that once the floor started moving. And yes — that was the show where Hank Williams III was...

My dad had a guy working at his transmission shop who took me to Lloyd Noble to see Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy Collins on the Mothership tour. Let that sink in. Thirteen years old.  Lloyd Noble Center.  Mothership era. That wasn’t just a concert. That was a cultural experience. Lights. Funk. Basslines you could feel in your ribs. Costumes. Energy. Controlled chaos. Parliament-Funkadelic in t...

Building a Massive Stage in Miami Before the permanent venues. Before the easy load-ins. We built it from the ground up. On the backside of a parking lot in Miami, Oklahoma. Facing east toward what everyone jokingly called “the mushroom field.” No existing infrastructure. No pre-hung rigging. Just open space and a plan. And it wasn’t a small setup. It was a massive steel stage. First time ever bui...

Same night Lamb of God was tearing up Springfield, Hank III was leveling Cain’s Ballroom. Country first set.  Assjack second set.  Two completely different worlds in one room. We had done Hank before at the Will Rogers in Oklahoma City, but we kept telling him about Cain’s. Telling him about the history. The ghosts in the walls. The legends on the stage. That night it happened. DCF, Doc Rock, and...

Twenty years ago they were climbing. Now they’re headlining with a different kind of conversation happening around them. Godsmack has publicly hinted that this may be the final major run. Fewer tours. More one-offs. Possibly no more records. That’s a shift. So what’s next? The casino model. We’ve seen it before. Aerosmith  Mötley Crüe  Def Leppard  Poison  Joan Jett Residencies. Multi-night casino...

Sometimes rock videos crossed the line on purpose. This one definitely did. Shotgun Rebellion filmed the video for Devil’s Daughter inside a church. Dark setting. Controversial concept. And somehow Max ends up co-starring alongside Jesse Jane. That’s when the realization hit. “Wait… I’m filming a music video in a church with a porn star?” And not just any adult star. Jesse Jane was one of the bigg...

Here’s what made that lineup even crazier. It wasn’t just stacked. Every band on that stage was booked by the same agent — Tim Borror. One agent. One package. Multiple subgenres. Total domination. When that happens, everything runs smoother. Routing makes sense. Negotiations are streamlined. Relationships are tight. It’s strategic. And look at what that package covered: Lamb of God – modern Americ...

Band Canceled Max Put TM's Cell # On Venue Door This was the Killswitch show that never happened. Somewhere along the way they got hung up — Wichita Falls, Texas, if memory serves. Didn’t make it. No show. And the kids? They were furious. You’d brought that band through four or five times. Built a real fan base. Sold tickets. Packed the room. So when the cancellation hit, the blame didn’t go...

Hank was my guy. And one night at Cain’s stands out more than most. Before the doors ever opened, he was just walking the room. No crowd. No noise. Just him studying the walls. If you’ve ever been inside Cain’s, you know it’s a museum of American music history. Photos everywhere. Legends in frames. The moment that stuck? Him standing under the painting of his grandfather, Hank Williams. That wasn’...

July 10, 2005. One day. One ticket. Absolute chaos. Lamb of God  Clutch  Opeth  Unearth  From Autumn to Ashes  Norma Jean  Poison the Well  Every Time I Die  Chimaira  Throwdown  Madball  High on Fire  All That Remains  Strapping Young Lad  DevilDriver  GWAR All on the same bill. Under twenty bucks. That lineup today would cost you a mortgage payment in festival passes. This was the era right afte...

When you start talking about 90s grunge in casino rooms, the first tier is obvious. Pearl Jam  Alice in Chains  Foo Fighters Those bands aren’t playing casinos. They’re still arena and festival headliners. The real casino conversation starts with the second tier. Soul Asylum  Everclear  Sponge  Gin Blossoms  The Nixons These are the bands that can absolutely sell out the right casino room. The 90s...

What most people don’t realize is you just added a whole new chapter to the “back in my day” stories. Because before that hill became a park… it was a grass parking lot. And that parking lot? It was a massive tailgate party before the gates ever opened. Back then, fans didn’t line up down the road with wristbands and phones out. They stayed at their cars. Trucks backed in. Tailgates down. Coolers...

The first time casino merch sales really hit different was in Durant. Smart move. When you bring a legacy act like KISS into a smaller market and print that city name on the shirt, it changes everything. Miami. Durant. Towns that had never seen their name on an official tour tee before. That’s not just merchandise. That’s validation. And in those markets, people buy heavy. KISS down in Durant? Cle...

2004 was stacked. Hilary Duff rolled through on the Most Wanted Tour at the Lloyd Noble Center. AEG Live and DCF Concerts. No cameras. No recording. Tight security. At that moment, she was a massive pop act. That was peak teen-tour era. Big production. Big rules. Big money. Same stretch of dates, totally different vibe. August 27th at the Diamond Ballroom  Headroom.  414 people.  $10 ticket. That’...

When you’ve got 60 stagehands, loaders, riggers, and production crew flaring up in the heat, you better have a park nearby. That’s why that space mattered. Safety meetings were daily. OSHA approved. Hard hats, steel toes, paperwork, radio checks. Everyone likes to talk about the party, but the show doesn’t happen without structure. Still, sometimes a “safety meeting” meant cooling off and catching...

In the 80s you saw W.A.S.P. in arenas. By 2022, they were playing clubs. And it didn’t matter to Blackie Lawless. His rider didn’t care what size the room was. You filled it. Or you had a problem. Some shows you book to win. Some shows you book because you love rock and roll. W.A.S.P. at Amplified Live was one of those. And it ended up being the one that shut the place down. After that run, Amplif...