“Building An Empire Of Noise In ’95!” – A Goo Goo Dolls Testimony

Today I want to share with you all a very nice write-up forwarded to me by Mr. Sean. He is the one who has been reaching out to provide some amazing and rare Goo content. So far, he has sent me the “Hold Me Up Promo Show” and the “Live In Rochester” concert, with more stuff to come in the next weeks/months.

We exchanged some emails lately and he shared with me a testimony of encounters he had with the band back in 1995. If you’re a true Goo aficionado, I invite you to read it. It’s a very interesting testament to the band’s golden years and their relationships with their fans back then. Sean had an amazing experience which has certainly had a profound impact in terms of how he psychologically relates to the Buffalo, NY music act.

I present to you his testimony, as he has forwarded it to me. At the end of this post you will also find a couple of pictures he sent me: one is the “Hold Me Up” plaque and the other is the signed poster from the night he describes in his statement. Enjoy the reading. It is worth it. Below is also a YouTube video I made about it.

BUILDING AN EMPIRE OF NOISE IN ’95!

I truly believe that some dreams can come true. I’ve had several come true in the past forty-plus years. Easily one of the most memorable happened on August 15, 1995. It was at the X-club in Hamilton, Ontario. That whole week was Goo Goo Dolls week for myself, my old best friend Ryan, his brother Rory, and several others. But that night in Hamilton belonged to Ryan and I. Goo Goo Dolls had been the biggest musical influence on me for many years. My loyalty as a fan has withered away though because they haven’t put out any music in the last few years that’s worth listening to twice. For the most part, anything they have put out on their last three albums has been a horrible experience for me to listen to…A genuine bummer. Chris Rock once said in an interview, “Only a Prince fan can say a Prince album sucks!” That quote has been stuck in my brain for a long time, but it took a bit of honesty and growing up on my part to truly appreciate it. I love/hate Goo Goo Dolls with all my heart…They gave me some of the greatest days of my life with their tunes, but they’ve also broken my musical heart over and over again. If they put out an album or single to the masses there’s going to be some heavy criticism from fans like me when they put out a less than acceptable product. This is because people like me were the ones who stuck around when almost no one was listening. But they have been the band who they are now longer than they were ever the band I used to love. It’s a genuine bummer that, in some ways, I still haven’t gotten over. It’s because their early music means so much to me. The goodness simply outweighs the bad.

The week began in Kitchener, Ontario…at the Volcano Club. It was my second time seeing them live and it would be the first time I got the chance to meet them. Johnny, Robby, and Mike were unbelievably genuine and friendly. Once the show started, Ryan, Rory and I made sure to sit in a good spot because we were bootlegging the whole show with a small tape recorder placed at my feet. It was a fantastic concert in front of a less than enthusiastic crowd. But the next night in Hamilton took my love and appreciation for Goo Goo Dolls to a place I could only dream of. For this show, it would only be Ryan and I. Before the concert, Ryan and I ran into Johnny and a couple other people on the street. He told his cousin, who I believe was named Scott, to put us on the list. We didn’t have to pay for another show if we didn’t want to. Unreal. As much as we had loved the concert the night before, we had hoped to hear more of the old stuff that we’d grown to love so much. (In retrospect, I would kill to hear three of those songs played these days.) Our idea was to write them a short letter requesting five songs we’d love to hear. We called it the “Power Set.” (Cuz you’re gone, There You Are, I’m Addicted, Up Yours, Hey) We gave Johnny the letter before the show and hoped for the best. .Short story long…They pulled out our letter in the middle of the concert and played the “Power Set.” Hot damn, what a feeling! No drug has come close to capturing the high I felt at that moment. It was a full throttle ten minute performance of some of the best songs the Goo Goo Dolls have ever created! Letter written, songs played…Dream come true. Mission accomplished. 

Some people need to wait years, even a lifetime, before they see another dream come true. I only had to wait fifteen minutes. Halfway through the song Only One, Johnny looked down at me in the front and asked, “Do you know the lyrics?” “Fuck yeah!” And with that, I grabbed Ryan and brought him up on the stage with me to share in singing to the crowd. Even though the X-Club only held about three hundred people at best, I felt as though we were at Wembley Stadium. I got to feel a microcosm of what a musician feels like for a solid two minutes and I still haven’t come down from that highest mountain to this day. A few more songs later, they played the biggest hit they’d ever had, “Name.” But whoever came to the X-Club to hear it would be sadly disappointed because halfway through the song, Robby Takac got off the stage still playing his bass and wandered into the crowd. Johnny stop playing and looked down at the small crowd of us in the front and asked, “Do you really want to hear this again?” We all screamed no, Robby jumps back on the stage…”One, two, three, FOUR!.. ” and they rip into “Torn Apart”…first song, first album. Unfuckingbelievable!

 My emotions were so pure back then. It makes no difference who the artist is really…When you love a band more than any other, and you get to hear exactly what you want to hear at your request and the next thing you know you are onstage with your best friend and your favorite band singing together…That’s a long and cherished tidbit of life that is never anything but crystal clear in my memory. There are times when I really wonder if it ever happened. That night in Hamilton they were frisking people at the door, so we were unable to sneak the tape recorder in. (I even remember the Memorex cassette tape I was going to use to tape it…it was an old Peter Gabriel show.) As a result, one of the greatest nights of my life would be left at the door of the X-Club. I have my autographed poster from that night…Ryan and I know it happened. Our friends were not so sure. But two nights later at the Opera House in Toronto they got the proof they needed as we sat outside the concert hall eating chicken fingers and fries. Johnny and Robby approached us and we spoke as though we were old friends from grade school. We gave them another letter requesting the Power Set one more time, and they played every song for us again. They were not frisking at the door for this show, so that old Peter Gabriel cassette would finally be put to good use. Ryan’s brother Rory placed himself on the balcony of the Opera House and recorded the whole thing. On the bootleg of the show, Johnny says the following. “Hey Rob? You wanna do this? This is the….Power Set. We keep getting these letters from people…these people right here…these guys, actually…They came up and sang with us the other night. It was fucking awesome. (on the bootleg, you can hear Rory laughing very clearly.) So they put together their own set cause I don’t think they’re digging what we’re doing. So, uh….what do you think? You wanna do this?” Then, as clear as a bell, you hear Rory yell to me down on the floor, “Alright, Hampson!” They tore through those five songs like I had never heard them before two nights earlier, and this time it was in front of a very enthusiastic crowd. We got the whole show recorded minus two songs. Rory flipped the cassette over right after the power set so there was only so much time to catch everything. But holy shit did we get lucky.  

So, in one week, I had spent maybe $60 on three concert tickets. $60 to have a dream come true and so much more. And anytime I want to go back to that time, I just have to throw on a CD and it’s as simple as that. But I still truly believe that somewhere out there is a bootleg of my night at The X-Club on August 15th 1995. What can I say? I’m still a believer.

Sean Hampson