Goo Goo Dolls in D.C.

From RTakac@aol.comTue Jul  2 20:05:25 1996
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 1996 18:48:35 -0400
From: RTakac@aol.com
To: Penberth@oswego.Oswego.EDU
Subject: D.C. Review

Review for the Goo Show at the 9:30 Club in D.C.

Set List - 

Naked
Burnin' up
Fallin' Down
Eyes Wide Open
Somethin' Bad
Impersonality
Only One
We Are The Normal
Long Way Down
Girl Right Next To Me (not sure if this is in the right place)
There You Are
Hey
Another Second Time Around
Cuz You're Gone
Disconnected
Name
Lucky Star
Slave Girl
Flat Top
    1st Encore -
Up Yours
Don't Change
    2nd Encore - 
Two Days In February


	The Goo Goo Dolls show on the 1st of July was held at the new 9:30 Club in
Washington, D.C. The show was sold out.  More then 1200 people showed up to
see Dishwalla and The Goo Goo Dolls. To start out, the new 9:30 Club is a
great venue. The floor area is fairly large, and there is a second level
balcony. The club has a great sound to it, and they also serve some tasty
food.

	The doors opened at 7:30pm and the opening band, Dishwalla, went on around
9pm. I don't want to upset anyone, but they were horrible. There were a lot
of people that went just to see them, so I guess it is just a matter of
taste. Anyway, they played a fairly short set, about 40 minutes or so.

	Goo went on around 10pm. With the lights dim and no one on stage, you heard
Johnny start Naked, the radio version. He then walks out on stage, with a
colored spot light on him. Robby and Mike slowly walk out and take their
places. And then.....BAM!!! The song kicks in, and every one goes nuts. It
was not the way they usually open a set, but it was really cool. Another new
edition to their show was a light show. There was a white screen behind Mike
where different shapes and colors were displayed. There was also some cool
"mood" lighting with the spot lights and a smoke machine. It was all very
well cordinated and it looked very cool. Johnny and Robby were both playing
new instruments, the ones the played on the Letterman show. Johnny was using
a Les Paul, and Robby was using a Gibson. Robby was also wearing jeans and
shoes!!! I think that the record company had alittle to do with that. Any
way, back to the show. After going through a bunch of songs from "A Boy Named
Goo", Johnny informs the croud that they will do some songs from their
earlier albums. He said that if you didn't know the songs to just bang your
head and move your lips, and now one would know the difference. That was
right before they played "Girl Right Next To Me". Very few people knew any
songs, other than the new ones. There were some hard core Goo fans, and they
were easy to spot, especially during "There You Are", "Hey", and "Up Yours".
When they played "Cuz You're Gone", they added an extra verse right before
the solo, and it was very different from the rest of the song. It was almost
trippy, but it sounded really good. After ripping through the rest of the set
and coming back out for the first encoure, Johhny saw some one holding up a
sign in the croud. After strugling to get, he held it up and it said "Up
Yours". So they decided to play it, and they instructed the fan who gave them
the sign to hold it up everytime the croud should say Up Yours. In the last
encore the guitar tech screwed up in the middle of Two Days and turned on
Johnny's distortion to early. After alittle adlibed cursing from Johnny,
things ended smothly.

	After the show you could meet The Goo Goo Dolls and get them to sign things
if you bought "A Boy Named Goo" cd before the show started. Nedless to say
there was a lot of people waiting afterwards to meet them. Goo came out and
had to push their way trough a hoard of fans, trying their best to look like
they were having fun. I managed to get a cd signed by Robby and Johnny, and I
also took pictures with them. Poor Mike was all alone in the corner, because
no one wanted to talk to him. Well, I went over and talked to him for
alittle, and he is a really nice guy. So please give him a break. It was
really nice of The Goo Goo Dolls to deal with all the fans after the show,
because there was a lot fans waiting. Now that Goo is getting so big, I think
it will become even harder to meat them after the shows. I've seen them six
times now, and before no one waited around to see them, so then you got a
chance to really talk to them for a while. The popualrity of The Goo Goo
Dolls is rising so much, which is great for them but it isn't so good for the
hard core Goo freak. But after all of this, no other show on Earth will ever
beat a Goo Goo Dolls show.

Mario