Looking for… A 1997 concert

Today I received another message from user Javier, who has been sharing with us plenty of very interesting links, and oftentimes includes his thoughts about them as well.

In his recent communication, Javier talks about a 1997 concert which took place on December 31st, on New Year’s Eve. Specifically, this one. This is a pretty unique performance as it features no then-new songs from what was their work-in-progress release “Dizzy Up The Girl”. A review of such show is also included in Javier’s notes.

Just like 1992 and 1994, 1997 was a transitional year within which not much was going on with the band, besides the aforementioned album pre-production. In the future, I will write a dedicated post about it. I have been holding on to it because I do not have many sources or material involving that specific time frame.

Anyhow, it’s time to leave the mic to Javier. Below is his message:

The Goo Goo Dolls concert at Hard Rock Café, New Orleans on December 31, 1997.

I think this concert is the most (for me) important in the Dolls’ career, since we could affirm that during this period, Rzeznik wrote Iris and recorded it in the famous Ocean Way in Hollywood, mixed and recorded by masters of the musical engineering Chris Lord Alge (Green Day), Jack Joseph Puig and Allen Sides (Beyoncé, among others).

The setlist can be found at the following link:
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/the-goo-goo-dolls/1997/hard-rock-cafe-new-orleans-la-2bc444de.html.

I found on an old dead Goo Goo Dolls fan website, a column written by a fan, detailing the following:

From: Lior Samfiru
Midnight Meltdown
Dec 31, 1997
Hard Rock Cafe, New Orleans, LA
Hey there everyone..

“Well, I wasn’t at the New Years show but my best friend was. He is not really a goo fan but since he was in New Orleans at the time i made him go to the show…lucky bastard..:). Well here is the “review” he gave me:

It was free admission and my friend was 2 meters from stage. He said that the energy level was great and that the goos looked to be in great spirits. At one point Johnny asked for my friend’s watch for the New Years countdown!! Johnny also said that this was the largest New Orleans crowd they have ever played in front of my friend said that Lazy eye was by far the best received song they played (even more than ‘NAME’) and apparently it rocked.

I asked him if they played any new songs, he said that he
thinks so but he wasn’t 100% sure…sorry..I know you are all dying to
know about that. In any case he brought me some cool pictures of the boys from the show, and that’s it..”

Here the link of the page https://www.musicfanclubs.org/googoodolls/tour/NewOrleans123197.htm

If this is so, it may be that many of the songs we thought were played in Lewiston on August 15, 1998 for the first time, maybe not.

The existence of an audio or video bootleg I couldn’t say for sure, but they always appear after a long time on the road.

Greetings from Chile and Long Live Goo Goo Dolls

Javier

This may be a long shot, but if you happen to have this bootleg, please consider sharing it with us.