America
2 September 1990
Skysox Stadium, Colorado Springs, CO
Well, this show was more humorous than anything. A AAA baseball game opened for a group that enjoyed tremendous success over 15 years ago. After the game, a crew drove a couple semi trailers out to 2nd base, opened a couple panels, and voila, we had a stage.
Colorado Springs is, contrary to popular opinion, one of the windiest cities in the U.S.A. Okay, Rapid City, S.D., Cheyenne, WY, and the original windy city, Chicago, are up there, too. But, today, Colorado Springs held a concert on one of its windiest days, and so when America started into "Riverside", you could occasionally hear vocals, and some sounds, only when the wind blew the right way.
On top of this acoustic challenge, there was a security issue. If I had to pick one overriding characteristic of human nature in the 1990s, it'd be tough, but I'd probably go with how people have a "Me Too" mob mentaility. Some brilliant individual decided to jump onto the playing field and run towards the stage, and was soon tackled by one of Colorado Springs' finest. However, he was soon joined by several other undaunted individuals, and after a while, the police department became unable to control the low-scale riot. One police officer even slipped and fell on his butt chasing one guy, causing a large part of the 5,000-strong stadium crowd to exclaim. This, of course, encouraged hundreds of baseball fan-cum-concert-goers to storm the field, thus essentially overpowering security.
Eventually, in between songs, Gerry Beckley politely asked the crowd to return to their bleacher seats, stating that, contractually speaking, the group could not perform while audience members were trespassing on the baseball field. After a few boos and several minutes later, order was restored, and my four friends and I could continue enjoying the show.
Their set was, like hundreds of other performances, a collection of greatest hits, similar to their 04 July 1988 Fiddler's Green Performance. One notable addition was a nice, new Dewey Bunnell tune, called Greenhouse, sung in the key of B minor. Their bass player, again, covered vocal duties for departed member Dan Peek's "Lonely People".
In fairness, the concert was $10. Hard to constructively criticize that.
[***] - Steven T.
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