I will
readily admit, I purchased tickets to the Kid Rock show for the express purpose
of seeing ZZ Top. Seriously, how could
you go wrong with a $25 ticket to see the boys from Texas up here in New York? I have heard that Kid Rock puts on a good
show, and I had no problem going to see him, however the main driving force was
definitely seeing ZZ Top live.
The
funny thing is that I almost didn’t make it.
I was pretty sick that entire day (from eating shrimp most likely, and
if you don’t see the irony in that I can’t help you), and more than once I
thought about saying to hell with it and not going. I was on vacation all of last week (if you
can count moving and getting settled as much of a vacation) and part of me
didn’t want to break that up with a long trip to Saratoga. My girlfriend is not the staunchest Kid Rock
supporter either, so I knew she wouldn’t be too upset over missing out on the
show. However, a package of crackers and
Gatorade from the gas station settled my stomach enough to make the trip. The drive was nice enough (and it should have
been considering the New York State Thruway is a toll road), but as we got to
the park, I could tell that the place was packed. We waited in line in our car for a good forty
minutes to get to a parking lot that was full, and we were then directed to
drive and turn around, parking in a lot across the street. This is something that we could have done,
literally, forty minutes before if we knew that the lot was full with the help
of a sign or something besides the archaic system of “sit in line and have
someone walk up to your car and tell you after forty minutes of stop and go
traffic”. This was bad form by SPAC and
not the last time they will have dropped the ball before the evening is done.
Because
it took us so long to get parked and to our seats, we completely missed Uncle
Kracker (which brought a tear to the eye of absolutely no one). We sat down after passing the ten dollar
grilled cheese stand and the twelve dollar beer vendors (thanks for keeping
everything so inexpensive Kid Rock!).
The minute these concert tickets went on sale a few months ago (March or
April I believe) I purchased my tickets.
They were all the same price so I didn’t even have to choose a seat, and
despite the fact that I purchased them at 10am as soon as they were available,
we were pretty much as far away as we could be in the seated portion of the
venue. The seats were not terrible, and
the fact that we didn’t have to stand amongst the masses was a godsend, but it
makes me wonder how those people with the better seats were able to obtain
those even though I logged in as soon as the tickets went online. Something was fishy but as long as the show
was good it would be alright.
We
missed Uncle Kracker and luckily for us, about ten to fifteen minutes after we
sat down, ZZ Top made their way to the stage.
I’m not really sure what I was expecting from a couple guys in their 60s,
but they were pretty bland. I had one
hope in terms of music, that they played “Waitin’ for the bus” from the Tres Hombres album. They accomplished that by the second song of
their forty minute set and filled the rest of the time with their standard hits
collection. I was impressed to hear
“Pincushion” from their 1994 album Antenna
but beyond that it was the standard fare.
It wasn’t bad, mind you, I was just not as blown away by the band as I
wanted to be. If there was more time,
it’s possible that they may have gotten into their catalog a bit more, and been
a bit more engaging with the crowd, but the short set really hindered them in
that regard.
ZZ Top
finished their short set and Kid Rock was up next. What we got was an ingenious invention that I
have never seen utilized at a concert before, a countdown clock. It notified the crowd exactly how much time
they had left before Kid Rock was going to take the stage. I have been to a lot of concerts in my time
and this is the first time that I have been informed of an act’s upcoming
performance down to the minute. Sure,
nowadays I can probably find out an approximate time when a band is going to
take the stage, but to be at the venue and have them say that Kid Rock will be
arriving in “fifteen minutes” is a new and welcome addition.
While I
understand why it was done, having Jim Beam and Harley Davidson as sponsors of
the concert (in order to keep the ticket prices low – a point that Kid Rock had
no problem reiterating throughout the night) included blatant product placement
and even a commercial between what I would assume was the initial set and the
encore, seemed a bit strange. I have a
feeling this seemed so out of place because I have never been to a show that was
that blatantly commercial, but if it will keep other concerts at a more
manageable price in the future, I would be more than happy to sit through any
and all advertisements they want to throw my way.
Kid
Rock’s set itself delivered on all of the hype that I had previously heard
about it. It was a high-energy show that
kept everyone up and dancing along throughout the set. One thing that really surprised me was the
amount of time Kid Rock spent on all of his older, more rap-influenced work. As someone that has his old CDs but prefers
his newer stuff, it was a bit disappointing that he decided to stay so attached
to his first three albums. He did mix it
up a bit with a selection off of each one of his other records, but really
stuck to the rap-influence for the majority of the performance, and even the
later work that he chose to showcase in the live set tended to be the heavier
stuff in the same vein as his Devil Without
a Cause album.
A few
songs in, Kid Rock mentioned that he was in the middle of fighting the flu so
he asked our forgiveness if the performance suffered (it didn’t) and made
mention of the fact that when he was charging as little as he was for the tour,
he was assuming all of the risk associated with the show (this was the first of
many mentions of the ticket price). He
may have tried to reach a bit with his voice at times, overcompensating for the
illness, but it wasn’t really anything that hurt the performance a great deal. If he stumbled at all, it wasn’t apparent,
and he was backed up by the Twisted Brown Trucker Band that may be one of the
best backing bands I have ever seen. The
setup of the stage itself was very “American Bandstand”-esqe and had an
old-school feel to it that I enjoyed.
The actual musical ability of the band was great as well. They didn’t miss a beat from the heavier
stuff to the random break of “Celebrate” or “Born Free” with a more
country/southern rock feel, easily transitioning between the two and being, in
my opinion, the standout of the show.
Some
negatives:
The
people, and the way they were handled.
It’s pretty apparent that SPAC is ill-equipped to handle the size crowd
that Kid Rock generated on Wednesday night.
The best way (and possibly the only way) to exit the venue is over a
bridge (and not a very wide one, mind you), which meant that the thousands of
people in attendance all descended upon that exit at once. All it would have taken was a fire or other
kind of disaster for mass chaos to ensue.
The DJ
Kid Rock jam session. I could have
really done without that. It’s not my
kind of music at all and I don’t find the appeal of it.
Kid
Rock’s DJ. I don’t think it was Uncle
Kracker, but even if it was, he was still horrible. The fact that anytime something even remotely
vulgar appeared in the song it was his duty to sing it, not Kid Rock’s made for
just an obscenity-laced rant for him. It
was as if Kid Rock’s DJ had tourettes.
All in
all, it was a decent concert, and for the price it was well worth it. A better handling overall by the concert
venue, coupled with a longer, more comprehensive set by ZZ Top would have put
it over the top. However, the whole
thing was good enough that my girlfriend, an admitted denouncer of Kid Rock,
was getting into it by the end of his set.
I’m not sure if I would make a repeat viewing of Kid Rock’s live show
the kind of required destination that I do for bands like KISS or Alice Cooper,
but for $25 I would absolutely be inclined to partake once more, just not at
SPAC.
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