Review by Priscilla
August 10, 2003
 

Compared to Cleveland, Cincinnati was one huge disappointment, as far as people go. Everyone was either a 3DD fan or sporting a mullet (99% of the time: both), and the entire venue (besides the roped-off lawn and a TINY pit) was seated.

Just to reiterate: NOT an OLP crowd here.

Reena and I got stuck with horrible seats in the nosebleeds but thanks to our ever-present Canadian friends Miro and Kruno, we got to move up to the seats behind the pit (they felt bad about us missing Chicago). Thanks guys!! Anyways, the setlist was the same from the night before, so about 4 songs into it, they started playing "Wipe that Smile..." and "Walking in Circles". When it came to the bridge in "Circles" and Raine looked out to see about 50 people outside of the pit standing, he got on the mic and said "You guys, stand up. This is a rock show." and another smattering of people stood up. He looked kinda irritated, and got on the mic again saying "If you guys don't stand up, I'm coming out there." Another few got up, but still there were thousands of people just chillin in their seats. So Raine drops his mic, jumps offstage, and starts walking around the crowd, looking at individual people in their seats, telling them to get up. When he stood up on something near the !
sound booth and started clapping his hands, the ENTIRE crowd was on their feet. It was, for lack of better description, a Bono moment. And let me tell you, I talked to a bunch people in that area once who boo-ed Jerry Cantrell for telling them to stand up. It was definitely a turning point for the crowd. Everyone was especially in awe after Raine decided that, instead of walking around the pavillion to get to side stage, he'd just walk over the seat tops. It looked like he was hoveringThe energy still wasn't great, but at least more people got into it after that. During Steve's guitar solo in "Birdman" (I think), the two people standing next to me--who, mind you, stood with arms crossed the whole time, nursing beers, waiting for 3DD--turned to each other with open mouths and started clapping like they had never clapped before. Overall, the show was great, but it could have been better with a better crowd. Oh well--at least they now have new people listening to their music (e!
ven if they ARE all business in the front and party in the back.)