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HORDE Festival,
Oklahoma City The long awaited HORDE festival with Barenaked Ladies has started and I was lucky enough to pop up to Oklahoma City to take in one of the shows during the first week. HORDE stands for "Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere" and is headlined by Blues Traveler, Ben Harper, and BNL with appearances throughout the tour from artists like Fastball, Smashing Pumpkins, Alana Davis, Paula Cole, and a second stage that highlights local and secondary acts. In Oklahoma City, BNL were the second act on the main stage after Alana Davis, whose performance was unmemorable except for the hit 32 Flavors. My friend and I took the opportunity to scoot up to the front row while a band called Bare Jr. took the second stage. BNL went on about 4:30 in the blazing 100 degree Oklahoma summer heat. They opened with "Old Apartment" and treated the crowd to several of the songs off of the new release Stunt including "It's All Been Done", "Never is Enough", the ironic "Alcohol", and the new single "One Week" which combines a peppy pop feel with a light hearted rap of obscure references. In between songs, the banter included references to the blazing heat with a song about Ed being "Freezer Man" and Steve breaking into song about a sign in the All Sport Stadium that said "I Love Sno-balls", complete with shaved ice and other areas. Ed and Steve shared a kiss when Steve recommended that people neck instead of crowd surf, which caused quite a bit of shock and giggles from the Oklahoma crowd that had never been treated to a BNL show before. Even so, there were lots of people who knew words to songs, including a group of girls that screamed out the lyrics to Jane, Brian Wilson, and $1M. People were screaming out the names of songs for requests, to which Ed replied, "we'll be playing all your favorite numbers including 2, 5, and 10." "What a Good Boy" and "Straw Hat" were also included in the set, which ended with the rap which now includes Celine Dion, Fastball, and Sesame Street references. The Oklahoma crowd of BNL virgins had been broken in right!!! After BNL, Smashing Pumpkins took the stage and played mostly from Ava Adore with a couple of earlier tracks like "Tonight, Tonight". Blues Traveler finished up the evening to a packed capacity crowd and handled their hits like "Run Around" which really pleased the crowd. John Popper was in rare form on the harmonica and they delivered an all around tight set. Chris Brown, substitute keyboard player for BNL even got to jam with BT for one of their interminably long songs, but I enjoyed watching how they played off each other in an improvisational mode. I apologize for not having more on the other bands but I was really there for BNL. I did catch part of the Gov't Mule set. They are a really great group of three with a strong southern rock sound, reminding me of Allman Bros. and Bad Company. The lead guitarist had an outstanding style and I particularly loved their last song, obviously an ode to their name in which they sing "where's my 40 acres, where's my mule". BNL will be out on HORDE all summer. They hit TX at the end of August (yeah!) and then will do a solo tour in the fall. On That Note, I'm outta here...... C |
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