Looking for… Live At Shea’s Performing Arts Center (1999)

Today we have a plethora of information about a specific concert the Goo Goo Dolls did during the “Dizzy Up The Girl” tour. Contributor Bailey found trivia, reviews, and even pictures from the event.

Unfortunately the show is not included in our archive at the time I am writing this. It will be added to the Bootleg Watch page, where a listing of bootlegs our readers are looking for is provided. Needless to say, if you happen to have any of them and wish to share it with other fans from all over the world, we are always only one email away.

The concert Bailey will detail below took place on December 3rd, 1999. In terms of that specific location, we already have material from a 2001 concert and a 2018 one which took place at the same venue.

Alright, enough with my prologue. I will Bailey take over from here.

Hello,

Today I want to share this “wanted” show, mainly because I mentioned it a ton during my Q&A, so I figured I’d make it known to the Goo world…that is, if you don’t already know about it already.

I have a bunch of pictures from those nights, and then a couple reviews two (I’m assuming high school aged) girls made for an old archived website.
As for the pics, they are from all three nights, December 1, 2, and 3 at Shea’s performing arts center in Buffalo, NY (1999)

Some of the pictures might not even be from that show, but I found them somewhere and thought they looked similar to those I was sure were taken there, so I added them to the group.

Also, here is the Setlist.fm entry for it. I think the setlist was the same all three nights, but there are some notable mentions here. For one, Flat Top, Cuz You’re Gone, and Just The Way You Are were all played. (Cuz You’re Gone being with the cool interlude “a thousand words”) I also saw somewhere that John played Fallin’ Down one of the nights because a girl had asked him to play something “old”.

The thing with this is, I know at least a couple songs were filmed, because at the end of the Vh1 documentary, they’re showing their performance at Shea’s.
Besides that, there was a show they did called “The Road Home” to advertise (if you will) the upcoming show that year.

Originally posted by Ryan Kirkpatrick Note, there are some pauses in the tape where the screen just goes blue, but it shows the entire episode. This is really cool footage, featuring thoughts from Artie Kwitchoff, Dan The Man (a friend from the early days. . .sorry, I totally forgot how to spell his last name), Robby’s parents, John’s sisters, one of John’s old friends, etc. etc. We also get to see film of old places the goo goos used to hang out around, such as the drinkin’ wall (featured in the “Laughing Music Video” and I think also the “There You Are” music video) and the big metal bridge (definitely featured in both of those music videos). We also get a look at the Continental, John’s house, I think Robby’s house, their old demo studio at trackmaster studios, and finally, Shea’s itself. It’s a beautiful place, and at the end, it also shows film from the show.

Now before I forget, these are a couple reviews from the show:

This first one is from a girl named Jenn:

I was in Buffalo for the 12/3 show last weekend, and it was the most fun I have had a long time!!!

It takes about 3 hours to get there from where I go to school, and I left at 4pm from my last class. At about 7 or so, I was getting the station from buffalo where they were broadcasting live from Sheas, and they were playing only goo goo dolls music!! That helped me get even more excited! They were playing broadway as we were just entering the city and seeing all the signs…it was a pretty cool moment!! We got to the hotel and checked in and made it right across the street to sheas at 7:30 (Just in time to give RobbieBoy his tickets:) The theatre was beautiful! I wasn’t really expecting that…anyway, I gave my toy ( barbie) and got one of the cool autographed photos!

The show was really amazing. Lance Diamond totally ROCKED!!! I loved his sequins…he was just so full of energy; he sure knows how to entertain!!! I thought his version of the backstreet boys song (backstreet’s back) was so funny…and livin’ la vida loca! And you gotta love “Never Take the Place of Your Man.” I knew he had to sing that one…I was so happy when it came on!

The time before the goos came on was suspenseful as usual, but I met Jackie and Maureen and we hung out so it was cool!! Hi guys!!

So the guys finally came on, and they were so full of energy, and they looked and sounded GREAT!!! At the very beginning a girl somehow got up on stage and ran to johnny…he looked kinda scared! Security took her away though. It was pretty much the setlist from the other tours, except they did Fallin’ Down (which I’ve never heard live) and also Hate This Place, which I also hadn’t heard. Before they did Fallin’ Down, John was talking about the birthday card he got, and about how in the corner really small, someone had written “I like your old music better.” So he said “This one’s REALLY old…” and they did the song=) There were lots of black balloons and bubbles floating around during Black Balloon, which was really cool! During one of Robby’s songs, he stopped and said hello to his grandmother, which was really adorable. Johnny also told the audience about how he thinks everyone is from buffalo, because they were doing a show in sweden and he asked, “Is there anyone out the!re from Buffalo?” and that three guys in the back screamed. One of the funniest things that happened that night was when the confetti bursts out….well maybe they were trying to get rid of the extra confetti or something, because it just kept coming…and coming….and coming….through the whole entire song…there was tons of it! John was half singing/ half laughing and asking “what the hell is going on?? What are you guys doing??” He eventually went over to the side of the stage and got the whole box of confetti and threw it into the audience, and he also threw a whole pile of it on Robby while he was doing a song, which was also very funny. And of course he had to go get the leaf blower and clean some of it up.

As for the happy birthday sing-along, It didn’t work after Iris ( I looove Nathan’s solo in that, how he walks up to the front of the stage…), the show was just going too fast…I did notice when we tried again later, though, I think it was right before 2 days in Feb…but John couldn’t hear us I don’t think!

This was definitely the best of the four goo shows I’ve been to…the energy was just through the roof. At the end of the show, John and Robby started rolling around on the stage, wrestling like brothers…it was very cute!!

Saturday night I went to the C O Jones (Daves band) show at the Calumet…it totally rocked!! I highly recommend you guys check them out (I think their webpage is http://www.cojonesworld.com).
Thankyou to all the cool fans I met in Buffalo!! You guys made my weekend so fun!!!

Ok, and this one is from a girl named Kelly:

The Dec 2nd Goo show was awesome — well, except maybe Mexican Cession (no offense meant to the group or anyone else, they’re just not my thing; they had great energy, though). They were the winners of the Edge’s opening act competition. Kinda ska-like-stuff, I guess. They didn’t play their cover of Iris, it was all their own stuff. Then another group played, I think Vouloir (but don’t hold me to that, I was at that certain stage of deafness that makes you unable to understand a SINGLE WORD anyone says), any they were pretty good, more of a real rock band than Mexican Cession. But at that point I wanted GOO, and I was sick of opening acts, no matter how good they were. But, for the record, the second group was good.

Anyway, then FINALLY the show actually started, the Goos opened to disco-type lighting flashing around and a somewhat undescribable little recorded “goo goo” song…. then everything got real dark and the guys came on and played (as usual) Dizzy — it was great, really high energy… after that, they did LWD and Lazy Eye, and they kept up the great energy…. next they played Slide, and the crowd went totally crazy, and we sang, in my opinion, quite well when asked to!

The rest of the show was awesome — they did most of the same songs as were normally on the set list…. it was all off SSCW, ABNG, or DUTG until the encore, then they did Just the Way You Are and 2 Days, which was awesome as always (I think they scared the old people sitting next to me right at the end there, with the sudden burst of squealing guitar and stuff). Nathan’s solo during Iris was great, really cool, and John’s during Cuz You’re Gone (or was it a thousand words?) was really cool, too… and Mike’s solo before Naked was really cool too (oh, he actually spoke once, too, to respond to John, so that was cool cuz he normally never talks at concerts) Robby was as energetic as always and really got the crowd pumped… John was more energetic than normal. The two took great joy in throwing the confetti stuff (from after the “greed” movie) all over the front row, and giving people down there five and stuff…. And John told very amusing stories, about his nightmare about the Backstreet Boys (getting beat up cuz he would obviously “not succumb to their wierd ways”)…. in short, it was REALLY REALLY GREAT!!!

The show on the 3rd was even better, in my opinion –if that was possible! Maybe it was just cuz my seats were a lot better, but the crowd seemed way more pumped and in to it and the guys, I think, were really happy to be there (but also sad that their homecoming shows were almost over, I think)… but anyway, starting from the beginning:

Lance Diamond opened — it was pretty cool — y’know, as sort of a Goo-cultural-thing…. he did Never Take the Place of Your Man and Bitch, as well as Backstreet Boys and Ricky Martin covers (and I must say, he’s better than either of them)… he also did that never fail crowd-rouser, Celebrate by Kool and the Gang. It was interesting.

Once again, the disco-dancing lights came on and the goo goo psycho song played, and the guys ran on to the stage playing Dizzy with, if possible, more enthusiasm than the last night’s show…. the crowd was on their feet before the end of the first verse… they were pumped, we were pumped, all was goo — it was spectacular! The set list was, of course, the same… but don’t let people tell you that every show is exactly the same, they’re certainly not — John told different stories, Robby announced that his grandmother was there (she was the one three rows directly in front of me who was so into it she kept waving her arms around in front of my face — cool grandmother!!… my only living one is in a nursing home… I don’t think she’d appreciate a Goo concert…!), and John got out the confetti-blowing thing at one point and “cleaned up” the stage (blew it all over the crowd, that is)…. it was really cool! I had a fanstastic time!!… y’know, it’s like my English teacher with great American novels: “I laughed, I cried” (literally, I cried out of happiness, is that pitiful or what?)….. in short,REALLY REALLY awesome!!!

After the concert I dragged my cousin up to the stage to hang out there for a while — I got some guitar picks and found someone to give a picture to, which was then supposed to be passed on to the guys (it’s something I drew, of the corner of Clark and Kent, in a fictional little Goo world, with the SSCW and bunch of other Goo and Buffalo in general stuff). The only disappointing thing was that I didn’t get to meet my “goo e-friend,” Lauren — hey Lauren, maybe some other time, huh? hope you had a great time! — but I had the most spectacular time, these were especially great shows…. the crowd was cool, too — we tried our best to sing happy birthday to John on the 3rd, and the energy was great, at least up close to the stage….. and we all had our little signed pictures for bringing our toys (thanks to the goos for signing all of those, huh?!?), and we all went home quite happy…. I certainly did… you have no idea how long it took me to get to sleep!!…. took psyched…. anyway, the Buffalo concerts were great, and I can’t wait to see the Goos again — anyone who hasn’t, better catch em when they get back to the States!

Bailey concludes her message with the following comment, and then also includes with it a very nice collection of photos, some of them taken from the aforementioned event:

As you can tell, I have a lot of intel, but I really really wish someone had the actual video, or at least the audio! It would be a great find, and I’m sure a ton of people would love to see it (it’s one of the most sought after Goo Goo Dolls bootleg, at least of what I’ve seen)
That’s all I have to share today, but there’s more coming soon!

Thanks for the precious info Bailey!