GREG PRATO



SHOW REVIEWS

credits / gregprato / show reviews



03-25-1993
New York, NY
The Wetlands

Review by Greg Prato Wetlands is a tiny little shoebox of a club, and although Blind Melon had yet to score their big hit with "No Rain," the venue was PACKED. When the group finally came on stage and began, there was a huge crush against the stage - but there was nothing you could do. A lot of idiotic crowdsurfers as well. I remember standing in the front right in front of Chris Thorn to the left of the stage , and some stupid girl kept grabbing onto his leg, and finally, he pushed her hand away while still playing a song! Shannon held the mic stand over the crowd as everyone sang the beginning to "No Rain," and I believe Shannon was wearing a 'High Times' t-shirt. Brad Smith took a toke off someone's joint during a song, and due to the surging of the crowd, at one point the mic fell and hit Shannon straight on his forehead! "Tones of Home" was played early in the set, and everyone was jumping up and down in time to the music. When the band returned from the dressing room for encores, Shannon handed out strawberry's to people in front. Easily one of the best concerts I've ever been to. A funny memory for me was that one of the friends I went with smoked so much pot before the show even started that he sat in the back of the club comatose, not even bothering to watch a second of the show! Another funny thing - some grunge rip-off band called 'Flowerhead' opened the show, and I remember someone in the front row reading a book throughout their set! One of the bandmembers' girlfriends eventually yelled at the guy and told him to pay attention to the horrible band. credit: blindmelon.org

03-27-1993
Deer Park, NY
Sparks

Opening Bands: Flowerhead, Po Boy Swing Review by: Greg Prato Just 2 days after my first Blind Melon show ever (@ The Wetlands), me and my college friends went to see Blind Melon again, this time closer to where we lived on Long Island - at a tiny, now defunct heavy metal club, Sparks. It was a much younger crowd than the 3/25 show, but still great. What I'll always remember the most about this show was that it was packed (again), and idiots kept crowdsurfing. Shannon asked the 'surfers' to knock it off, but the same idiots kept doing it. Eventually one of the idiots fell on the stage, and Shannon punched him straight in the face before bouncers ejected the dude! I have a memory for some reason of Rogers handing Shannon his Strat during the middle section of "Time" to play the bongos, as Shannon forced feedback out of the guitar. At one point (before the encores?), someone handed Shannon a joint and he handed it back to the people in the front to smoke it. In addition to Flowerhead opening up again, a mega-horrible Long Island funk-metal band called Po Boy Swing opened the show. Just a sampling of how bad they were - the dopey singer announced that they were going to do a cover song from a band that was one of his favorites, and that he owned all their CD's. The band proceeded to play a serious, note-for-note perfect rendition of Ugly Kid Joe's "I Hate Everything About You!" YUCH! BARF! What dildos!

07-02-1993
New Britain, CT
Sports Palace

Review by: Greg Prato My friends and I drove all the way from Long Island to Connecticut to catch Blind Melon play a medium sized hall called 'Sports Palace' just as "No Rain" and their debut album were about to take off (tix cost a whopping $4.07 each!). I remember the venue being super hot, and when the band hit the stage, we were quite surprised to see that Rogers Stevens had shaved off all his hair and Chris Thorn cut his quite short as well. Shannon had his long hair in pigtails and was wearing blue denim overalls, and they opened up with "I Wonder." Although the band played well, it was a strange gig - the crowd was comprised of very young dudes who kept crowdsurfing, acting stupid, and not really paying attention to the band. Also remember prior to B.M. going on, some stupid local DJ's came on stage and did an unfunny Beavis & Butthead imitation. Why are DJ's such subhumans?

07-09-1993
New Haven, CT
Toad's Place

Review by: Greg Prato A week after catching B.M. at a weird place called 'Sports Palace,' me and my friends again drove all the way from Long Island to Connecticut to catch one of our fav bands. And again, tix were very low-priced (roughly $5 each). I remember some of my friends weren't 21 yet, and they wouldn't let anyone in w/o I.D., so we tried to figure something out in front of the club. Lo and behold, who should come walking up along the sidewalk...Shannon Hoon! We were all pretty damned shocked, especially when he took the time out to talk to all of us (he even complimented me on wearing a Primus t-shirt!). Shannon told us that he was excited about B.M. getting the opening slot on the upcoming Neil Young tour w/ Soundgarden. I asked him about Soundgarden (since they're one of my all-time favs), and he said Chris Cornell was a real nice guy and was in 'total control' when he sang. We explained our situation, and he told us that there was a side door (a fire door), and that 1 of their friends inside was going to open it briefly when B.M. hit the stage, so the young dudes could sneak in (in his own words, "bum rush the door!"). Well B.M. started a little while later, and although I was old enough to get in, I stayed outside w/ my friends. Nobody opened the door after 2 or 3 songs, and we were beginning to worry. Eventually me and one of the older dudes went in the venue, and the dude walked right past big security lunkheads to the fire exit, and opened the door w/ no problem. My friends finally got in! We went to watch the show which was cool, but yet again, stupid slam-dancing jocks were hogging the front of the stage (one of my friends did a funny thing to one of the idiots, he stuck gum in his hair w/o the angry slam dancer knowing it! Ha!). Shannon even announced from the stage that he heard that 'the underage kids got in' or something like that. After the show ended we waited out front, hoping to speak to some bandmembers again. Eventually, Rogers came out, and we talked to him for quite some time. He had a copy of the Butthole Surfer's CD "Independent Worm Saloon," and told us all to go buy it! We also asked him if he'd heard the new Smashing Pumpkins album, 'Siamese Dream' (which hadn't been released yet), and he said he didn't, but that Shannon did and loved it. We talked to him for quite some time, and eventually Shannon came out as well. We all chatted for a while until they all piled into a van or something and drove off. I didn't get home until roughly 6 am, but it remains quite a memory!

09-19-1995
Sea Bright, NJ
Tradewinds

Review by: Greg Prato Me and my friends lived on Blind Melon's 2nd album, 'Soup' (no pun intended), for the summer of '95 - Hootie, Bush, and Silverchair mania was sweeping MTV and radio, making us sick. It pissed us off that MTV/radio was ignoring Blind Melon all of a sudden, but it made us all the more enthused to treck a couple of hours to check out the band play in Jersey, at Tradewinds. It was quite a while since the last time I saw the band (summer of '93), so I was curious to see 'em again. The vibe of the crowd was not an entirely positive or peaceful one - I remember they were violently slam dancing to Rage Against The Machine's debut album and the Red Hot Chili Pepper's 'One Hot Minute' even before the show started! Police were patrolling the parking lot heavily, as I witnessed a group of fans getting busted for smoking pot in their car! The band Prick was supposed to open up, but for whatever reason, didn't play. When the group sauntered on stage, I kind of noticed that Shannon's appearance was strange - he had smeared eyeliner on, and just didn't seem as healthy as he had in the past when I saw the band. Anyway, he told his 'Courtney Love joke' that he told at other stops on the Soup tour, and the band blasted away into "2x4." A great show - although at one point I had my eyeglasses knocked off my head and broken by a crowdsurfing gorilla! Although it's been quite some time since this show, I still have some of the body movments and whatnot that Shannon did that night to the music etched in my brain. Kinda weird. Afterwards, my friends hung out to meet the band again. We got to talk to Rogers Stevens, Glen Graham, and Brad Smith - I managed to give Rogers and Brad a demo of a pretty weird band I was in at the time, with hopes that they would listen to it and offer us the opening slot on the tour (just kidding)! I told Brad that the band shouldn't even bother to worry about MTV's sudden abandonment of the band and embracement of Hootie and to just plug ahead - even he said he 'didn't get Hootie.' Something else that Brad said was that they recorded something like 25/30 (?) songs for 'Soup' -- I wished these unreleased songs would surface already! A kind of sad thing was that there was a huge mob around Shannon, so I didn't bother saying hi or anything, I figured I was going to see the band again in about a month or so when they played Irving Plaza in NYC. As we know, the band never made it that far on the tour. Still, this show remains one of the best B.M. shows I attended. Good memories.