Frontier City
Oklahoma City, OK
June 25, 2000+5

 

Warning: this review has been rated P-13 by N.I.M.R.O.D.* for language.

I couldn’t go to the Wildflower Fest gig, so I figured the Oklahoma City show could make up for it. If you wanna read the whole convoluted travelogue, carry on. If not, click here.

The cheapest deal ended up flying to Tulsa and renting a car, so that’s just what I did. ;) Imagine my shock and bewildered surprise when I picked up my bag, rental car and checked into the hotel all within 30 minutes after my flight had landed. Can’t beat that!

The next morning I woke up early. Like farmhand early, so I thought, "Screw it, I’ll go to Frontier City that much earlier" thus allowing me plenty of time to experience...

The 6 Circles of Frontier City Hell

First and foremost, it’s got to be said: the park bites. I’m sorry, it just does. Half the rides weren’t functioning and the ones that were looked lame. Good thing I wasn’t there for that! ;)

Parenting Extraordinaire – here’s a quote from OKC’s Mother of the Year 2005:

"Jesus Christ!!!! You kids need to get your shit together!"

This was at 10AM. I shudder to think what she says to them when it’s a few hours later, the temp’s a few degrees hotter and there are a couple Bud Lights in her system.

Cowboy Bob – before the gates opened we were all serenaded by this guy playing guitar. That’s fine. I appreciate the attempt at ambience, what with it being Frontier City and all. It just seemed to me that his subject matter was a little… um.. dark. Topics included: cowboys getting trampled to death, evil horses and the devil.

The gate to the amphitheatre is between two speakers which was the third circle of hell - non-stereo country music. One side was off by *this* much. Now, I’m no country music fan to begin with, so this just made it that much worse.

Non-CT-Knowin’-Ignoramuses – I lost count of how many people said, "Who’s Cheap Trick?" or "What do they play?" or "I thought one of them died" after seeing the sign announcing the concert series.

Fuzzy Pimp Hats - apparently this is the hot item for theme park wear. Neon colors and animal prints are preferred. I’m sure the polyester fuzz wicks away the sweat and really keeps one cool.

Meanwhile, back at the amphitheatre entrance, set up was in full swing. When I saw forklifts full of chairs, I got nervous. Was there reserved seating I hadn’t heard about?!?!

A nice guy who had the look of authority emerged from the fenced-in area, so I asked him for the scoop. Apparently the first 2 rows are for VIPs ("it’s a corporate thing"). He also informed me that season pass holders would be let in ˝ hour earlier. My ears pricked up with this bit of news and even though he told me not to bother, I knew I’d end up with a season pass.

Yes, I’m that stupid. LOL

With no other CT fans in sight and a season pass to the crapiest theme park in the land in hand, I decided to check out the Oklahoma City National Monument.

Of course the show was my favorite part of the trip, but damn! This excursion made it that much more worthwhile.

A big ol’ tip of the hat to everyone who designed the site. It is simply amazing – a beautiful, moving tribute to the victims and survivors of that horrible bombing in April 1995.

The reflection pool is genius. The "Survivor Tree" and the Survivor Wall were two other impressive parts of the site. However, it was the 168 empty chairs (one for each of the victims – including smaller versions for the children who were killed) that really got to me.

If you ever have a chance to see this, by all means, do.

Back at the park, I met okietrick, his son and TrickedinKC. Within the first two minutes I managed to drop an F bomb within ear shot of the poor boy. What can I say? When Zach’s not around, my potty mouth kicks in! :P

TrickedinKC earned a special place in my heart because not only does he have great taste in music, he can quote Teen Girl Squad.

So good!!! :D

Not too long after that, we ran into some of the Dallas faithful: Mandycello and her hubby, plus Zanfan and family. I walked around with them for a bit – opting out of any rides.

This would be yet another sign that I’m officially an old person. ;P

Sorry, I just wasn’t feeling it. Plus, yet another ride had broken down so suffice it to say that I wasn’t trusting the machinery at that point.

Around 4-ish, I headed back to the stage entrance to meet up with my buddy Brian (and his sister and sons, Ryan and Christopher). Those three wandered off into the park, while Brian stayed with me while I held out the hope that we’d hear a sound check. No such luck. We did get to hear the techs play bits of GRH and "Come On, Come On."

I also ran into 2 old friends from the days when I lived in Salina, KS. (Stop laughing) Jeff and Liz had made the trip and when she saw me, she said, "I KNEW you’d be here!" LOL! It was a nice surprise to catch up with theatre friends I hadn’t seen in 7+ years.

Right about now is when two more of the Dallas fans showed up. It was nice to see Lisa again and meet Beatpoet. :) I was jealous when I heard they got to stop for lunch at the 2 Frogs Café in Ardmore. :)

Around this time, I discovered the separate line for season pass holders and the 40 or 50 people there already! DOH!!!!!!!!!!!

The downside of this option was that I had to stay there and missed out on time with my friends in the "regular" line.

Back in the season pass line, I met several very nice folks. Seems there’s a group of "regulars" at these concerts. And when you think about it, it makes sense. A season pass is about $70 and there are 10 or 12 concerts every summer. Not a bad deal at all!

It was fun to chat with them and catch them up on their CT trivia. :)

At 6PM, as promised, they let us in. There was a mad dash by some of us for the seats down front – although most season pass holders opted to sit on the grassy hill behind the sound tent.

Fine by me – it meant I scored a spot in the third row, on Rick’s side.

The venue was simply a large piece of land, with a modest (read: shitty) stage set up and a few hundred folding chairs in front of the stage.

I call the stage set up shitty because... it is. The PA wings looked like PVP pipe and the stage right side's "roof" was a sorry piece of canvas, haphazardly tied down in a few places. Then there was the lighting rig. Two spans of shiny new truss and purty par cans being held up by folding legs that wouldn't pass muster on Genie lift.

What the hell?!

Scary, scary rigging. I looked forward to describing this set up to my coworkers at TOMCAT USA on Monday. :P

Soon after we got settled, the regular ticket holders came in and filled in the rest of the seats. Those of us in that third row, eyed the two empty rows in front of us, wishing we could have them. LOL It became a running gag to watch others wander up and try to take those seats, only to be shooed away by security. We all thought to ourselves, "Do you people really think we’d be sitting in this row, if those seats were available?!??!"

Brian’s son Christopher came over to chat and discovered the empty seat next to me. Man, it only took hat boy a millisecond to ditch his dad, aunt and brother. LOL! I told him this meant he had to be my date for the show. ;)

Of course, I had to give his brother Ryan a hard time – for once Christopher’s chattiness paid off! ;)

Right behind us was a fellow fan, Teresa. The last time we saw each other was in Rockford and I was 7 months along with Zach. :) It was nice to meet her again. Between chatting with her and Christopher, the time flew by.

On one last beer run before the show, I ran into Brian who was with Bill Rich – of Guitars of the Stars fame. It was very nice to meet him! (Bill – I’m gonna send you an invoice for the latest round of therapy I’m gonna need thanks to your bringing up you-know-who. ;) )

THE SHOW

FR

Robin all in white, plus shades, ponytail and hat (fortunately, those last three all came off mid set)
Rick all in black (couldn’t read the sparkly letters on his shirt)
Bun all in black
Tom lavender shirt, black pants, cowboy hat

SET LIST

Hello There No opener – woo hoo! I had to yell at Christopher until he showed the proper respect and stood up for the guys. ;)
Big Eyes Meh. No offense. I love this song and all, but it's time for it to go bye-bye for awhile. :)
IYWML Best film intro, plus a list of albums it’s been on. The chicks next to me didn’t like my arms swaying back and forth. Pity. :P
Voices Before this one was my moment of infamy. LOL … more on that in the Misc. section. Rick said we sounded good, so we should sing some more.
Southern Girls Christopher likes all the gestures Rick uses on this one. :)
IKWIW I think Rick noticed my Piece shirt during this one. He made lewd gestures at me and the ladies next to me.
IWYTWM In an effort to rile up the crowd and get them to come closer to the stage, Rick threw out a fistful of picks. Not used to that during this one! LOL
Best Friend The usual 3 chord intro for this one followed by the usual blistering live rendition. Lately, Rick’s done some decidedly "rapper" poses during this one Yow! Rick was yelling "3 CHORDS!!!!" at the end.
Never Had A Lot To Lose  
The Flame Robin was in excellent voice again. Wowie! Christopher located a lighter and proceeded to burn his thumb while holding it aloft, poor guy.
That 70s Song "Now you can see it every night" intro.
Surrender I still can’t get over how Rick flings that 5 necked beast around.
Dream Police Robin put that damn hat on again.
California Man You gotta love the fun riffs RN plays before they launch into this one.
Good Night Now :( <= That’s what I always look like when they launch into this one – because you know the show’s almost over. The folks with the tickets for the seats directly in front of us showed up just as this one ended. WTF?!?!?!?!?!? I’m sure that beer tent was much better than a CT show. :P

MISC.

Performing in that kind of heat/humidity is a bitch, but the boys were more than up for the task. The crowd was a nice, responsive one. The guy in-charge from earlier in the day speculated that they’d have 10,000 in the crowd for the show. I don’t know about that, but we were definitely in the 1,000’s.

As I mentioned before, the first two rows were reserved seating for VIPs and (based on what I learned in the season pass line) radio winners. Now that’s fine and all but only about 1/3 of these primo seats were ever occupied. Seems to me that all bets should be off after the encores have begun (at the very least) but the security people had their orders. The seats had to remain empty the whole night.

And so they did. I thought for sure that they’d lose control during the pick showers of IWYTWM and DP, but nope… They cleared that area as soon as all the picks had been scooped up. Truly amazing.

Dumb, maddening and a real pisser but amazing nevertheless. :P

I’d argued with one of them before the show (in a lighthearted way) reasoning that it would be awful for the band’s morale to see so many empty seats in the front. LOL

Robin noticed this nonsense and towards the end he squirted water on the security dudes. LMAO!!!

The sound was good and I think the crowd really had a good time. It did my heart good to hear the season pass regulars rave about the guys.

For purely selfish reasons, the intro of "Voices" was my favorite part of the show because I got to help out. ;) After Rick uttered his usual, "This one features my favorite singer" line, he turned to me and said, "Do you know who that is, Lisa?" I don’t know if he was shocked or amused when I screamed "ROBIN FUCKIN’ ZANDER!!!!" at the top of my lungs.

As I reflect back on that, I distinctly remember making a conscious effort to take a deep breath and support my outburst with my diaphragm. Bwahahahhaha! I’m sure my acting and vocal teachers from over the years would be proud. ;)

After dropping the F bomb Rick looked amused and/or bewildered before repeating what I’d said off mic.

I don’t know. Maybe you had to be there. But I thought it was fuckin’ funny. :D

RN SAY

Rick was his usual, playful self tonight.

He talked about the shows they’d just played in Fargo and Green Bay, informing us that those audiences really sucked, but we were great. (Sorry to the fans at those shows. LOL I’m sure he didn’t really mean it. ;) )

He reminisced about playing a club called Ruby Tuesdays and asked the crowd if they were there. He recalled that CBS turned them down for a recording contract, so they went out and signed with another lousy label. Doh!

Looking into the crowd, he told us what a "fine looking" crowd we are, going on about the good looking women. "There are good looking men here too, but you’re not my type."

Not missing a beat, Tom laughed and asked Rick what kind of guy IS his type. Someone in the crowd yelled, "MICHAEL JACKSON!" which received universal boos. Whoops. Rick laughed and said that they’d met MJ back in 77 or 79. "He was… nice… Even then we were still too old for him."

DOH!

He asked the people in the front row what their problem was. LMAO! "You’re sitting down and you’re laughing at all my perverted jokes… You’re my kind of people!" He asked if there were any perverts in the back row (lots of cheers) then he noted that there are probably lots of pervert in the middle, too (still more cheers).

While wiping off his ear pieces, he complained about the water in there. LOL Another weather comment – "How come when the sun goes down in Oklahoma City it just gets hotter?" This got a big round of cheers.

POST SHOW JUNK ‘N SOME THANK YOUs

It was nice to visit with some fans for a wee bit before heading out to the traditional late night breakfast with Brian & co. Before we headed out of the park, I visited my new friends on the hill and handed out the extra Rick guitar picks I’d snagged during the IWYTM & DP showers. :) Rick’s good, but even he can’t flick those puppies out that far!

Before I headed back to Tulsa, I got some relief from the heat (and eat some decent food) at a nearby restaurant. Over plates of eggs and pancakes (and much to their father’s chagrin), Ryan, Christopher and I exchanged Napoleon Dynamite and Dave Chapelle quotes. LOL! Yes, my wonderful influence on the youth of today knows no bounds. ;)

I got back to Tulsa at a relatively decent hour and fell into bed – hoping I’d wake up in time for my flights the next day. ;)

I did. Everything went smoothly and I was there to greet Zach when he woke up from his nap and let his dad hit the golf course. :)

As always it was a pleasure to see old friends and meet new ones. A special thanks to Brian and his family for letting me tag along to Cracker Barrel. And of course big shout outs to CT & crew for another fantabulous show.

Peace,
Lisa J.
<insert Homer quote here>

* N.I.M.R.O.D. = National Institute for Morally Restrictive and Outraged Doodooheads

 



© Copyright, Lisa Jebsen, 2005