Photo: Fin Costello/Getty Images. Circa a long time ago.
by Stephanie R. Myers
If you think “Blue Oyster Cult” and immediately think “more cowbell,” it’s doubtful that even the band would fault you—even band member Eric Bloom mimed the bovine-based percussion at the beginning of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” at their late show at B.B. King’s in Manhattan on Saturday night. Then again, whether it’s Will Ferrell vogueing or a long-forgotten song given a second life via a commercial, the usual conduits of discovering music don’t seem to apply anymore anyway—and it’s hard to see that as anything but a positive thing.
One assumes that Blue Oyster Cult is likely to agree. Judging from the liberal sprinkling of young-looking hipsters in the crowd for the show, it seems to stand to reason that a well-known SNL sketch ended up giving the group’s fanbase a new life. But despite the fact that the band penned such seemingly novelty-styled tunes like “Godzilla,” there are surprisingly few kitschy things about a BOC performance. The band, having been around the musical block more than a few times, knows exactly how to please both their hardcore fans of decades and more casual listeners within the live realm—give ‘em energy, give ‘em the hits, give ‘em your all. Truly, no easy feat—and somehow they manage to pull off even the kind of lengthy guitar solos that would seem masturbatory in the hands of the wrong group.
Delivering a relatively quick but aurally dense 75-minute set (their second show of the evening), the band left some fans so intensely demanding an encore that the group had to come back onstage and let the audience know that they had to wrap up before a late event began at the club. Judging from the reactions, it doesn’t look like AOR is poised to die anytime soon. Don’t fear it.
