200 - Gin Blossoms

I am a huge Gin Blossoms fan, which is why it was so disappointing to see them at Summerfest and completely bomb in front of 300 people.

199 - Motley Crue [Alice Cooper]

Alice Cooper’s AMAZING set and stage production wasn’t enough to pull Vince Neil’s fat ass out of the bottom 15. That’s how bad Motley Crue was in 2014. Tommy Lee’s drum rig was supposed to be the highlight of the show. The rigging failure not only delayed entry by over an hour, but they ended up abandoning it completely. It was getting late and we left before Neil could wheeze at the crowd of “motherfuckers” some more.

198 - Toby Keith [Miranda Lambert, Train]

Toby Keith, presented by Ford, presented by a notion that the South will rise again. Why was Train there? No idea. Drops of Jupiter did not fly with this crowd. Lambert? A sweetheart for sure, but these people wanted to see pure, red, white, and blueneck, Iraq-war supporting, country boy patriotism. And boy, did Keith deliver. Toby has some hits, but this wasn’t about the music. Most of the night was a license to have a good ol’ time with plenty of booze while celebrating with the white people, I mean right people.

Was everyone in the crowd a racist? I mean, yeah, probably.

My partner, DeRoyce, and I got a call that someone in the bleachers was threatening to stab the guy in front of him. We get up and see a large, sun-baked Cpl. Sanders with a Confederate Flag arm tat who sure as shit smuggled a knife in his fake leg.

As me, DeRoyce, and some other guys were leading him out, he kept shouting the same thing over and over again, ”Welcome to White Fest.”

And yet, still better than 14 other shows.

197 - Brian Culbertson

Do you know how bad you have to be to have smooth jazz take a spot higher than you? Smooth. Jazz. Light show was cool.

196 - Harry and the Potters [Desmond Jones]

Desmond Jones is a solidly appropriate Midwestern band which opened Harry and the Potters, which is what happens when you only buy the Harry Potter merch from Spencers and can also play musical instruments.

195 - HELLYEAH [Nonpoint, Sleep Signals]

Like the HELLYEAH show that appears later on this list, but without Vinnie Paul, making this Post-Pantera band completely Pantera-less and it showed.

194 - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes

A few months after Jade Castrinos left/got fired, Alex Ebert strained his vocal cords and had to sip on olive oil all night long to belt out four or five songs. As one of my favorite bands from college, ES&TMZ was a real letdown. When your violinist steal the show, vocally, it’s a rough night.

193 - NF

White rapper from the mean streets of Gladwin, Michigan. Also rapped from on top of a cage. Where’s the Undertaker when you need him?

192 - Blackberry Smoke [The Record Company]

I think we should retire ‘Southern Fried Rock.’ One woman asked me if Kid Rock was going to join the band. I said he wasn’t, and then the woman looked like she was angry at me for insulting her intelligence. Kid Rock was literally on TV at the time at the Cleveland Browns’ Monday Night Football game. The band sounded better during their soundcheck than the live show, which was a first.

191 - Dan + Shay

I’ve got a problem labeling Dan + Shay as country. They were pop. The lights were pop. The stage production was pop. The vocals were pop. The crowd was country, sure, but not like Alan Jackson country. This was Florida Georgia Line country. It was all very well and good and the place was buzzing with electricity, but it was also my second show and country music fans are not pleasant to the authority they all say everyone should respect.