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Pimpadelic was that kind of band. Even as a spectator, you could feel the room going sideways. They were shock-rock meets rap-rock chaos, and it was so wild it made other rowdy crowds look tame. Ralph was in disbelief, and that takes a lot. Then there’s Easy Jesus. Easy Jesus is David Allan Coe’s nephew, and that connection mattered when it came to getting attention for bookings. Texas roots, easy...

Volume 15. By that point, Metal Bash wasn’t an experiment. It was a machine. This one was special because it was the first time bringing Metal Bash to Cain's Ballroom. Bigger room. Bigger stakes. And somehow, we crammed the whole lineup into a 60-second commercial. No music from every local band either, just names, because the national package took priority. But the local scene still mattered...

Before Edgefest chaos, Tulsa and OKC were already stacked that week. August 15th and 16th — Brady Village and the Zoo Amphitheatre. Paul Rodgers and Kansas on the bill. That classic-rock lane where the crowd knows every chorus, and the shows run like clockwork. Kansas doing one of those late-era victory laps, still pulling real fans. Then the conversation clears something up. The downtown outdoor...

If you’ve worked the Zoo Amphitheatre, you know the struggle isn’t the show. It’s the load-in. Rolling cases through gravel. Fighting the layout. Dragging gear where it was never designed to go. Years of stagehands have earned their stripes out there, and the new crews don’t even realize how lucky they are compared to what it used to be. The Zoo has served its purpose for a long time. It’s hosted...

Two nights. Two completely different scenes. Same weekend. September 13, 2003 — Curly’s. Dropkick Murphys with Last Target and The Unseen. DCF and AEG. One of those Curly’s nights that proved you didn’t need a polished venue to have a legendary show. Curly’s was raw back then. Vacant-lot energy. Dirt and torn-down buildings nearby. But the shows hit. Then the next night, September 14, 2003 — Diamo...

Two nights. Two stages. Full local scene energy. The dates matter here. Not July 24th. It was July 29th and 30th. One of those nights was at Cain's Ballroom and it was a Mad Max style build. Two stages, constant changeovers, and a lineup that felt like a roster sheet of that era. Udora headlining the mix with Midnight to 12, Wither, Makeshift, Rook, Cynical Theory, All Too Familiar, Vent, Wai...

June 9, 2003 — Bricktown Event Center. The Flaming Lips. Liz Phair. Starlight Mints. That night wasn’t just a great bill. It was work. Assistant promoter rep. Managing runners. Checking in merch. Counting money. Keeping the machine moving while the crowd kept coming. And it was a big merch night. Because the Flaming Lips don’t do average merch. They’re known for those killer tour posters. Unique d...

Big Monday. August 15, 2005. That’s the kind of date that tells you everything about momentum. Not long before, The Killers were playing Bricktown Live, a 400-cap room on a weekend. Tight stage. Close crowd. The kind of show where you can feel the whole room breathe together. Fast forward. Now it’s a Monday night, and The Killers are sold out at the Coca-Cola Bricktown Event Center. Bigger venue....

June 2003 didn’t slow down. It stacked. June 20th, River Parks in Tulsa — Third Eye Blind. Great setting, perfect summer venue energy, one of those nights that feels easy and fun. Then June 24th, 2003 — Queensrÿche and Dream Theater at the Brady Theater. If you’re a prog-metal nerd, that’s the dream bill. Both bands played full headlining sets. Not a “co-headline” in name only. Real sets. Real tim...

If you grew up going to shows in Oklahoma, you already know how much a venue can change a whole city’s music scene. Tulsa is talking about a new amphitheater on the river, with River Parks being one of the locations in the mix. Oklahoma City is also planning a brand-new amphitheater, and the same development group is tied to both projects. That’s a big deal. Early renderings have people talking fo...

Weird Al at the Diamond Ballroom. And if you’ve never worked a Weird Al merch table, you haven’t seen true efficiency. This was the Poodle Hat Tour era. Goofy poodles everywhere. Wild graphics. Deep catalog items. UHF DVDs. Tour books. Shirts numbered like a menu. But here’s what made it different. Weird Al fans are the nicest fans in the business. No exaggeration. They walk up like they’re orderi...

When people talk about big shows, they usually talk ticket sales. They don’t talk merch. Here’s a number for you. ZZ Top — two casinos — two days — almost $200,000 in merch. One merch table. Let that sink in. That wasn’t arena-level production. That was casino routing. Durant and Miami. Markets that had never seen ZZ Top up close like that. And when those towns see their name on the shirt? They bu...

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...