Review by SueW:
With 6 gigs in 9 days, 4,000 miles to drive and 10 different hotels I won’t have much time for full reviews so this is just a few of my thoughts about the gig.

This was easily my favourite gig of the tour!

The venue was out of the town in a road which contained a mixture of houses and industrial units. It was an unassuming building which I drove straight past the first time.

I got there for the gig about 20 minutes after the door opened and it wasn’t too busy. There were several people around the centre of the stage but on stage left there was a staircase which lead to near to the front of the stage so I sat on the bottom steps of that for most of the gig and had a perfect view of Kasim.

There was no opening act which I wasn’t too sorry about as I had a 9 hour drive back to France (via Belgium) the following day.

This was another gig when Kasim came on stage already looking hot and then proceeded to get hotter through out the gig!

They started off with the (almost) usual Red and Black / Golden Age Of Leather / Burnin’ For You opening songs but instead of whatever the fourth song was going to be, Eric told the band (and then us) that they were going to change the set list and play The Virgil instead.

At the beginning of Burnin’ For You some people in the crowd through confetti towards the stage and then some flowers which was a nice touch.

Eric asked if many people had been to their previous German gigs this week (not many had as they were a lot further south) and then asked if there was anybody there from France. Nobody was and Eric made some joke about them probably having surrendered (I wasn’t sure if that related to the Euro Football tournament of WWII).

Eric also said at the beginning of Me262 that the song was a ballad to World War II which I wasn’t expecting him to say in Germany.

At one point, instead of standing close together to play guitar, Richie circled Kasim a few times which seemed to surprise Kasim and made him laugh!

After Buck’s Boogie when the audience were applauding Buck and Richie’s guitar solos, Buck made a point of acknowledging Kasim’s great bass playing. Although few people in the audience will have noticed it, Kasim plays a MASSIVE number of notes during those solos too.

We had the bass solo and Kasim show-reel part in Godzilla again which was lovely to see but it always seems strange to me that Kasim has to stand in the middle of the stage without a microphone and shout the words while Buck sings Bang The Drum in the microphone.

At the end of the gig Buck gave Kasim a nice big hug!

After the encore of Hot Rails To Hell, Eric spoke to Buck who looked at his watch before he nodded and then they played Cities On Flame.

The band were on stage from about 8.10pm until 10pm. When we went outside there were people lining up for a later gig by a different band.

Both Eric and Buck always look so calm on stage and so in control (probably because they have been playing together for so long) so there always seems a relaxed feel to the gigs.

After the gig, someone who had seen me with Kasim before the gig, made a point of coming up to me to say how great he thought Kasim’s bass playing was and what a great asset he was to BOC!

Roll on Clisson, France tomorrow evening!

Videos:

Buck's Boogie:

Godzilla and Kasim show-reel:

Hot Rails To Hell / Cities On Flame:

The venue (taken from the KasimInfo.com Blog that day):
Tonight Kasim Sulton plays the sixth gig of a 7 gig Blue Oyster Cult tour in Europe.

The gig tonight is at a venue called Zeche in Bochum, Germany. This is another late booked gig to replace a festival.

The gig tonight starts at 8pm (2pm in NYC) and doors open an hour prior to that.

On Thursday they played in Spain so to get to Bochum, Germany they would have had a 15 hour drive but luckily they have flown here.

Again (partly because I don't read German) this venue was difficult to find much about but most German venues are all standing with people gathering around the doors up to 3 hours before the gig starts in order to get to the front of the stage. German have no concept of queuing so it tends to be a race when the doors open!

Also, unlike most gigs in the US and UK, at German gigs they usually have a policy of returning drink glasses for a deposit (Germany is very enviromentally conscious) so after the gig the floor is not awash with discarded glasses or bottles. Bread-like pretzels are also usually sold at German gigs and guys walk into the crowd selling them (not when the band is on stage) and at some places vendors have portable drink machines on their backs which dispense beer!

Kasim Sulton with Blue Oyster Cult Gigs 2012