Jun 12, 2016
Never Gonna Live If You're Too Scared To Die #SoAlive #ggdboxes
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Never Gonna Live If You're Too Scared To Die #SoAlive #ggdboxes
2015. We've almost caught up on the Goo Goo Dolls timeline.
The year started off with the news that the Incredible Lance Diamond had passed away. And because Lance wouldn't have wanted it any other way, Buffalo celebrated his life with a wonderful memorial concert. The Goo Goo Dolls joined the event with kind words and a very sincere performance of Name.
The entire memorial concert for Lance Diamond
The band's performance of Name for Lance Diamond.
The next time the Goo Goo Dolls returned to Buffalo, it was under much happier circumstances. They performed for only the second time at Robby's thirteenth Music Is Art Festival. It was a free Goo Goo Dolls concert in Buffalo so naturally it poured the entire day.
Aside from those 'big' events, the band kept busy playing one-offs and private shows while recording new music for their eleventh album. One band member scared us all in a racecar, they saw history being made at a horse race and they performed with the most important guys to ever be part of professional sports.
See you all again in 2016.
2014.
Look. We can follow the 'rules' of this project and talk about promoting Caught In The Storm as the final single from Magnetic and the Canadian tour and the summer tour with Daughtry. But if you say "Goo Goo Dolls in 2014" to me, all I want to talk about is the Otis Midnight Sessions. So that's what we are going to do.
First, a moment of silence for all of the people, especially in Kentucky, who never got an Otis Midnight Sessions show anywhere near them.
Second, a moment of silence for the Otis Midnight Sessions CD/DVD that never happened.
So if you're super new to the Goo Goo Dolls or have a really terrible memory, the Otis Midnight Sessions was a 12 concert tour in tiny tiny venues where the band joined up with another band, Run River North, to perform acoustic versions of some of their biggest hits as well as some lesser known album tracks and 'should have been hits'. In between songs, John and Robby told stories about the songs or just completely went off track. A film crew recorded some of the shows and the plan was to release a CD/DVD.
The good news? It was perfect.
The bad news? It's another one of those 'never going to happen again' things.
Some more good news? There are actually a ton of really nice videos from this shows available on Youtube and you can see every single song performed.
Below I've linked some videos but you'd be doing yourself a favor by spending a little time getting lost on Youtube with some Otis Midnight Sessions tour videos.
Two Days in February in Nashville.
Go back and look at the entry for 1990, the year this song was released. The Goo Goo Dolls have lasted 30 years and I know they've said they can't be expected to be the same people and play the same music for that many years. But 24 years after Two Days in February was released, it still sounds right. It still fits in with their current music. That's pretty amazing.
Acoustic #3 in Niagara Falls.
This is one of my favorite performances ever. For all the love I have for the Goo Goo Dolls as an electric rock band, sometimes I forget how beautiful and heartfelt they have the capacity to be.
Become in Niagara Falls.
I never thought I'd recommend Let Love In songs but I really loved the way they ended these shows with the other performers leaving the stage, leaving only John and Robby.
2013. The Goo Goo Dolls released their tenth album, Magnetic. They promoted the singles Rebel Beat and Come To Me. They went on an incredibly long international promotional tour, co-headlined a summer tour with Matchbox Twenty, did a UK tour, ended up on a cruise ship, a parade float and sang the national anthem. Oh, and then they finished off the year by firing Mike Malinin.
Let's look at some of the happier moments of 2013.
First up, a live recording. The Goo Goo Dolls played a stripped down show for Live In The Vineyard on 4/6/2013 in Napa, CA. Click here to download a nice pretty recording as aired on Sirius XM.
The setlist is:
Slide
Rebel Beat
Here Is Gone
Broadway
Come To Me
Name
Iris
Give A Little Bit
Fun fact: The organizers of Live in the Vineyard created the twice a year event with the Goo Goo Dolls as the primary act they hoped to book one day.
Next up, random promo for Magnetic:
The first time I ever heard Rebel Beat and actually liked it.
John Rzeznik on a UK cooking show. He's as confused as the rest of us but at least we've seen John Rzeznik make a cake now?
John busking in Sweden. He made $8!
Then there was a long summer tour with Matchbox Twenty. Ever want to see a Goo Goo Dolls show turn into a rap show?
And then there were two. Like the first time around with George, a lot has been said in legal documents, interviews and social media about Mike's departure but it doesn't seem like we will ever get a completely straight answer so choose whichever one you like the best.
2012. The Goo Goo Dolls went back into the studio to record their tenth album.
For most fans, 2012 was a pretty quiet year. There were only a few public shows and the band didn't share much of anything from the recording process, which was very different from the previous record.
The event that seemed to be most newsworthy for the Goo Goo Dolls in 2012 was their performance at Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA. They invited George Dennehy, a young man without arms, to play guitar and sing Iris with them onstage.
John ventured out to do some charity shows like the ones below.
Rob Machado Foundation
ECHO Gala
And finally, for some reason, 2012 was the year super famous women decided to cover Iris. Maybe Taylor Swift gave them ideas.
Beyonce
Kelly Clarkson
And that’s a wrap on 2012. Goo Goo Dolls go full speed again early in 2013.
2011. The Goo Goo Dolls continue to tour in support of Something For The Rest Of Us.
We will start with a personal favorite and just a couple lines of me fangirling. Without a doubt, my favorite part of 2011 was listening to the first show of the 2011 summer tour as a radio station broadcast it live. It's always fun when you get to experience a new setlist for the first show of the tour. Though I've had the opportunity to see a couple tours kick off actually in person, learning the summer 2011 setlist over the radio absolutely floored me. A brand new song (Last Hot Night), a song I thought would never get performed (Still Your Song) and my personal favorite song that I'd been chasing for ~10 years (Fallin' Down!!!) ALL in the first five songs?! It doesn't get much better than that! And even then, we also got a couple more songs we will probably never hear again like All That You Are and the acoustic version of Something For The Rest Of Us. Christmas in July!
So here's that show, Cincinnati, OH on 7/13/2011. Take note of how Last Hot Night changed by the time it was released almost two years later.
The awesome setlist:
Last Hot Night in America
Fallin' Down
Here Is Gone
Slide
Still Your Song
Lucky Star
January Friend
Home
Black Balloon
Cuz You're Gone (with A Thousand Words)
Something For the Rest of Us (acoustic)
Name
Now I Hear
Tucked Away
All That You Are
Stay With You
Better Days
Iris
Broadway
Sweetest Lie
Big Machine
Let Love In
Some other notable appearances that happened in 2011.
The Goo Goo Dolls performed at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii.
Continuing down the football road, the band also played the NFL half time show at Wembley Stadium in London.
John met his new best friend Daryl Hall while performing at Live From Daryl's House and did Buffalo proud teaching the world how to make chicken wings.
The band promoted All That You Are from the third Transformers move. (I'm sure the movie has a real title but all I care about is the song.)
The youth of 2011 were introduced to the Goo Goo Dolls when Taylor Swift had John join her onstage to perform Iris.
And maybe it's not notable but it sure is delightful after only seeing black balloons at concerts for so many years.
2010. The Goo Goo Dolls released Something For The Rest Of Us and it was quite the journey to get there. When SFTROU was released August 31, 2010, the gap between LLI and SFTROU marked the longest break between two new studio albums by the Goo Goo Dolls. The album was hindered by producer changes, criticism from the record label and multiple delays on the release date. While attempting to handle the challenges of releasing the album and promoting the first single 'Home', the band also hit the road in April and continued straight through the year.
When the album release got pushed until after the summer tour, the Goo Goo Dolls released one of my favorite releases, the EP 'Waiting For The Rest Of It'. At least they managed to find a little humor in the whole ordeal. Who says one word titles are best?!
Speaking of favorites, 2010 gave us a fantastic live recording that I probably listen to more than any others these days. On SFTROU's release day, the Goo Goo Dolls performed an 'acoustic' show for Sirius Coffee House at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. It's got great sound, a fancy version of Iris, and 7 SFTROU songs performed live. I'm pretty sure we will never hear these songs live again so I appreciate this recording even more.
The setlist is:
Sweetest Lie
Slide
Home
Black Balloon
Now I Hear
As I Am
Better Days
Notbroken
Broadway
Iris
Something For The Rest Of Us
Let Love In
If that's not enough, here are some videos you can download from the performance.
Home Iris
And if you're sad that we are never going to get to hear SFTROU songs again and get bummed out about how negative the band (John) is about SFTROU, this year had plent of material to make you laugh. Click below for some fun Youtube interviews.
Gen X Takeover in Tulsa
Y98 in St Louis
And I’ll wrap up 2010 with a selfish request since a certain someone is following this blog: If someone wants to leak a live recording of ‘Soldier’, I wouldn’t be sad at all.
2009. The Goo Goo Dolls primarily worked on record #9, partially in that beautiful studio pictured above.
I have some sad news about this entry. The majority of my GGD archive in on CDs and DVDs in about 8 cases (I know. Someday I will fix this..). I'm travelling for work and I packed the wrong case. So my plans to post some awesome studio footage from 2009 have fallen apart.
So what else can we cover in 2009?
The Goo Goo Dolls only played a handful of shows in 2009 but there were certainly some unusual shows. They started out the year by playing at a rodeo in San Antonio. That's weird enough but they also played on a round stage that ROTATED while they played. I can't help but wonder if they had flashbacks to shooting the Long Way Down video during that show.
Click here for spinning
Not weird enough? How about that time they played a televised ice skating show? And debuted new songs on a televised ice skating show?! Both Sweetest Lie and As I Am were played in October 2009 even though they were not released on an album until August 2010.
Sweetest Lie debut
So that will wrap up 2009. I promise I'll do better in 2010.