A special Halloween night concert featuring Blue Oyster Cult with special guests UFO on their “Last Orders” 50th anniversary tour.
BLUE OYSTER CULT:
For over four decades, Blue Öyster Cult has been thrilling fans of intelligent hard rock worldwide with powerful albums loaded with classic songs. Indeed, the Long Island, NY-‐based band is revered within the hard rock and heavy metal scene for its pioneering work. Blue Öyster Cult occupies a unique place in rock history because it’s one of very few hard rock/heavy metal bands to earn both genuine mainstream critical acclaim as well as commercial success.
The band is often cited as a major influence by other acts such as Metallica, and BÖC was listed in VH1’s countdown of the greatest hard rock bands of all time.
Upon the release of BÖC’s self-‐titled debut album in 1972, the band was praised for its catchy-‐yet-‐heavy music and lyrics that could be provocative, terrifying, funny or ambiguous, often all in the same song. BÖC’s canon includes three stone-‐cold classic songs that will waft through the cosmos long after the sun has burned out: The truly haunting “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” from 1976’s Agents of Fortune, the pummeling “Godzilla” from 1977’s Spectres and the hypnotically melodic “Burnin’ for You” from1981’s Fire of Unknown Origin. Other notable BÖC songs include “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll,” “Then Came the Last Days of May,” “I Love the Night,” “In Thee,””Veteran of the Psychic Wars,” “Dominance and Submission,” “Astronomy,” “Black Blade” and “Shooting Shark.”
The intense creative vision of BÖC’s original core duo of vocalist/lead guitarist Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, and vocalist/rhythm guitarist Eric Bloom are complemented by Richie Castellano on guitar and keyboards, and the longtime rhythm section of bass guitarist Danny Miranda, and drummer Jules Radino.
We realized we’re a ‘classic rock’ band. That’s what we are, that’s what we do best, that’s what we know. The band members are proud of BÖC’s classic sound, and pleased the band is creating vibrant work for disenfranchised music lovers who don’t like the homogenized, prefabricated pop or sound-‐alike, formulaic rap-‐metal, which monopolizes the radio airwaves and best-‐seller charts.
BÖC has always maintained a relentless touring schedule that brings new songs and classics to original fans and, as Bloom puts it, “teen-‐agers with green hair.
UFO:
Phil Mogg has confirmed that this year’s 50th anniversary tour with UFO will be his last as the frontman of the long-running hard rock band. Consequently, it seems almost certain that at that point they will cease to exist. UFO were formed in London in 1969 and Mogg is their only ever-present member, performing on all of the group’s 22 studio albums.
“This decision has been a long time coming, I’ve considered stepping down at the end of UFO’s previous tours in 2016,” Mogg explains. “I don’t want to call this a farewell tour as I hate that word, but this year’s gigs (2019) will represent my final tap-dancing appearances with the band.
“2019 marks UFO’s 50th anniversary, so the timing feels right,” he continues. “There will be a final tour of the UK and we will also play some shows in selected other cities that the band has a strong connection with. But outside of the UK this won’t be a long tour. Being out on the road isn’t always tremendously luxurious and although the playing is as great as it ever was, the stuff that surrounds it becomes very tiresome. I always told myself that when I reached that stage I would step down, and that’s what I’m going to do. This is the right time for me to quit.”
Mogg turned 70 back in April 2018 and although his voice remains strong, he admits that age played its part in his conclusion.
“I’m a big reader of obituaries, and my finger always goes down to: ‘I wonder how old they were…’,” he chuckles. “The last few years have been tough, losing Lemmy was awful and I was sad that Jimmy Bain passed on a cruise ship. That distressed me quite a lot.”
While many veteran bands in such a position simply cease playing live and continue to record, UFO will no longer be releasing new music. The covers collection ‘The Salentino Cuts’ (2017) is set to become a signing-off point, though Mogg insists that however unlikely the prospect might seem – the singer is a lone strand of consistency throughout a 50-year history.
You’ll have gathered that Mogg is not about to slash his wrists anytime soon. Of course he is sad that the finishing line is now within slight but has had sufficient time to live with and process such a massive personal decision.
“Maybe the best word to use is ‘bittersweet’,” he concludes. “But my time has arrived to be leaving UFO. And all that remains is to make sure that we have a great tour.”