KIDS WANNA ROCK….

This pic apperaed the next day in the Winnipeg Free Press. We were about 10 feet from the stage and oh yeah that’s me  dead center in the hood wearing the horn rimmed Harry Potter  type glasses circa 1992. (Also that’s my hand waving)Pretty cool knowing there was 27,000 rockers behind me! Where the hell are ya TBone ??

Bryan Adams/Steve Miller Band/Extreme/Sass Jordan/Deadbeat Honeymooners/ Bird Hills Park/August 29th 1992

So Bryan Adams is cruising Canada with Nuno,Steve,Sass and some Deadbeat guys! Playing out-door shows along the way so when word reached Tbay we were in for the drive to Winnipeg to catch this show outside of Winnipeg at a huge outdoor field you know the deal one road in the same road out so you know there was massive amounts of cars,trucks,Busses and of course it rained out all day and it did affect the show(more on that later)

So we (myself,Al and Cementhead)arrived at the Birds Hill Park which was I think about an hours drive out of the Peg or so and it was around noon time and the show wasn’t starting til 3 so we made our way to the stage and not too many people were around and so we wandered right up,to the stage pretty much right in front of the  barricade. Man it was pissing rain and pissing rain. One of the roadies on stage we chirped him as Mr Squigey as that was his job to get the water off of the stage. He was cool about though but by the end of it he would Squigey the water right into the crowd! I think he eventually  snapped!

First up,to bat was local Peg boys Deadbeat Honeymooners and from what I remember they were good and I think they may have formed out of the ashes of another Winnipeg band called the Pumps. Good band and I may have bought their disc as well but who knows where the hell it went just like their career!

Sass Jordan came out and started plugging away and well she’s got a good voice and such but man I think she was boozed up or sumthin was going down. I mean she had an ok show but she just did not seem into it and quite frankly neither was I!

One band I did look forward too was Extreme and shit man did they deliver live. They came out and just got it going with It’s A Monster and from there it was their hard funkin rock that really got the crowd going. All the vocals were air tight,Nuno was blazing leads off the guitar,Pat Badger on Bass was holding down the fort with Paul Geary  on drums and Gary Cherone was entertaining as well. The man put on a show and I remember some girl next to me said how many times is this guy gonna grab his crotch?? Who the hell cares man if you don’t like what you see Get The Funk Out. Of course they played The Song(More Than Words) you know that one that made them huge but also some what destroyed them as well which ever way you look at it! They also played Rest In Peace single which had just come out but not the Three Sides To Every Story album yet. Extreme 1992 just out rocked. After a Sass babbling around for an hour Extreme brought me back man….they were oh so good that day!

Steve Miller mildly cruised out to the stage and opened with Swingtown and basically it was the Greatest Hits show or well it was for me but man he did not play Jet Airliner so I could not yell out the line ‘funky shit going down in the city”… But all the others off the Greatest Hits album were played. It was real cool seeing Miller live. Ol Buzzard is chill but he knows how to play and deliver songs man he was that day indeed CLASSIC ROCK! Amazing he’s still out there doing it too

So by this time the weather is picking up big time,rain and now wind and now Bryan Adams! Sure man I got no prob saying I like Adams. Let’s see I had Reckless,Into The Fire and Waking Up The Neighbours but my personal fav is the Live Live Live from 1988 that I paid some goofy import price for but man that’s a raw sounding Adams live show(geez I may have to review it) but Adams came out and opened with House Arrest and played the hits you know them. Heard them countless times the ones that stood out to me was stuff like Cant Stop This Thing which Keith Scott ripped out lick after lick and the song just jammed out. Scott is a fantastic guitar player man. People focus on Adams but the dude has a solid backing band. The show rolled on and so did the winds as you could see the lighting truss starting to sway back and forth and next thing you know shortly after an hour or so into his set the road manager appeared at the side of the stage waving the band off so they all went off except Adams he stayed out and played for a few minutes and then the road manager had enough and cut the power…Bam out went everything and it had too it was brutal out. Since I stood in muck for 11 hours the mud almost pulled my sneakers off! It was a disaster getting out of there but we did find our bus and out of Bird Hills Park.  Also of note since Adams cut his set short that Robin Hood tune wasn’t played and I was real OK with that!

It was worth it to stand out in the muck/rain/wind man!

Good Times!

Also of note TBone was on the fence about attending this show and at the last-minute with me ,Al and Cementhead already gone,TBone hoped in his Mustang and punched the gas to Birds Hill  Park  solo to and from the show and I had no idea he had even left Tbay!  Now in this day and age with cell service that wouldn’t have been a issue..but give T credit man he slogged and stuck it out solo no matter what Mother Nature tossed at everyone that day!