Okay, here's my "review", some of which I already said in a previous post .... (I wrote this for another message board so you may have heard me say some of this stuff before)
Started off the afternoon with a call from Rogers who said the band was en route from Cleveland and would be in Columbus around 3. I headed down to The Basement around 5:30 where I ran into Glen who was sending his wife off in a cab to the airport (she was heading home, back to North Carolina, I think). In the middle of the conversation with Glen, Shannon Hoon's mother, Nel, approached with a group of people. The guys knew she was coming to the show but none of them had seen her since Shannon's funeral in 1995. It was a pretty heavy thing to watch and Glen looked at me and said, "Well, hope you don't mind but we're going to head to the bus."
I stood outside the bus with a couple who had driven 8 hours from Dalton, Georgia (Jeremy and Lacey) to see the band for the first time. We waited for maybe 45 minutes while Nel and the Melon boys caught up on old times.
The band invited us to watch soundcheck which was very cool and then afterwards invited us out onto the bus where we hung out and caught up for about 30 minutes. Rogers told us some hilarious stories about hanging out with David Lee Roth at a party in New York a few years back. ("Imagine if he was the EMT guy that came out to rescue you .... he is doing mouth to mouth and you come to and look up and think that you've died and gone to Heaven because here is David Lee Roth hovering over you.")
Travis went out to dinner with Nel, which I thought was really cool, so that Nel could get to know him better. Having had the opportunity to hang out with Shannon quite a bit, I see a LOT of him in Travis and even the guys in the band said it was a little weird and that on more than one occasion they've called him Shannon by accident.
We went into The Basement around 8:45 and for the first time I understood why some people don't like the venue. The show was sold out and while I had dreams of being able to stand right up against the stage, the best I could do was stand back by the soundboard and even then I could barely see. I was hoping that when the opening band was done, the floor would clear out a bit (people going to get drinks and such) but that didn't happen.
From the second Blind Melon hit the stage, the crowd went nuts. From different conversations I heard during the night, I think a lot of people never had the opportunity to see the band back in the day so this was something they had been waiting on for 12 years and never dreamed would happen.
The sound was pretty bad ... in order to hear Travis in the mix, the sound guy had to lower the levels of everybody else so the guitars were very hard to hear but to me and the other 249 people there, it didn't matter at all - hearing these songs again for the first time in 12 years (and, in some cases, for the first time ever as the 'Soup' tour never made it to Ohio before Shannon died) was AMAZING. There was a great balance of stuff from the debut self-titled album, from 'Soup', and from the new stuff they've been recording. I knew that Travis would do a good job - I've heard a lot of the new stuff, but I had never heard him do any old Blind Melon songs and, man, the dude NAILED IT. He wasn't an exact replica of Shannon but they couldn't have picked a better singer to reform this band around. It was crazy/weird how much he channels Shannon.
Travis took a few moments to address the crowd and said that he felt honored to be filling Shannon's shoes and that if he could be in the audience instead watching Shannon, he'd do that in a minute. Then he brought Nel on stage and the place went nuts. It was really moving and emotional. The whole band gave her a hug before continuing on.
The most emotional moment for me personally came when they played "Mouthful of Cavities" because the lyrics really get to me. "I write a letter to a friend of mine / Tell him how much I used to love to watch him smile / See I haven't seen him smile in a little while". Those lyrics really make me think of Shannon and how he was such a great guy to hang out with and how I miss his childlike behavior. It was never a handshake with him, it was always a smile and a hug. I miss that.
The thing that was so cool to see was how much the crowd was into it. It wasn't a "No Rain" crowd - the people at the show knew all the words to all the songs and were singing along with everything. True die-hard Melonheads. Having seen 3 reunion tours this week (Van Halen, Smashing Pumpkins, Blind Melon), I can honestly say that Blind Melon is the only one I really see continuing on. This is not a nostalgia tour where the band is going out to try to heal old wounds - this is a rebirth, or maybe a new chapter in their career and the fact that they sold the place out rather than playing to 50 fans or whatever makes me think that when they come around next time, they'll be able to play the Newport and have a good draw.
They closed with "No Rain" and while it got a great response, it wasn't even the song that got the biggest response (once again proving that the true fans love EVERY song, not just the hit single).
After the show everybody in the band hung out and signed autographs, took photos, etc., etc. Even Nel got in on the action and posed for TONS of photographs with fans. It was very cool to see. I had the opportunity to go on the bus after the show and do some more catching up - it's been 12 years since I had the chance to do that and I had a lot of questions to ask
I heard Christopher tell his wife, who called while I was on the bus, that the Columbus show may have been the best one on the tour - that there was an energy in the room that was amazing. He said that it was better than the New York show, which I think they thought was going to be a good one.
I passed off a couple Damnwells CDs to the band in hopes that someday, even if it's just for one show, the two bands share a bill. That would be the most amazing night of my life.
All told, I think there is very little doubt that Blind Melon is back and this is just the start of something new and great.