Hey Hey In Rockers and welcome to the lobby, this month's edition which is coming to you all days after the 22nd Annual Music is Art Festival held here in my hometown of Buffalo over the Sept 21st weekend! This event has been an organically growing FREE gathering that began in 2003 as a small party in my recording studio parking lot in downtown Buffalo with 2 stages and a dozen artists coming together to celebrate local music and art in the city of Buffalo. 22 years later MIA has become a not for profit which operates throughout the year providing programming and instruments for the local music/art communities! And as I mentioned the festival has grown so much that we had over 5 dozen displaying artists, over 250 musical acts in 23 performance spaces including circus arts, professional wrestling, dance, performance art, projections, DJs and so much more as 2 dozen visual artists created art pieces live around the ground of the 17-acre venue on Buffalo's Outer Harbor.
It's a labor of love for sure, but one that is well worth it for the creative community where I live with my family. I also performed a few times at the fest, one time with a bunch of friends called the Urban Achievers a bunch of old punk rockers I've known for ages doing a couple of old Goo Goo Dolls songs called “No Way Out” and “Road to Salinas” from an era gone by in GGDS history our 2nd album from 1989 called JED. I also played a short acoustic set at our VIP lounge, about 5 songs, some covers, and some GGD classics from my end of the catalog. I even had a young kid come up to perform a song before my set and to my amazement he picked a song that I had written long before he was born, we ended up performing it together and it really was a special moment for me, and I hope for him as well. Buffalo, NY natives Chris Trapper from the band The Push Stars and bassist Zuri Appleby who plays with LIZZO, MGMT, and numerous other chart toppers also did acoustic sets in the VIP lounge. I've included pics from both of the sets I sang in this month's lobby pics!
Goo Goo Dolls went deep into the US markets this month with shows in states such as South Dakota, Idaho and Washington State as we bring the rock show around to a bunch of fairs and festivals over the next couple of months including festival shows with the likes of Beck, Blink 182, Foo Fighters, and way more! Looking forward to it as we continue to ready songs for a new release prior to the band’s soon to be announced North American Summer Tour …. Stay tuned! We've also announced a tour of South Africa in November and we will soon be announcing another exciting international tour for 2025 … as I said, Stay Tuned !!!!
On to the next thing …. Which is a performance with the legendary Boston Pops Symphony Orchestra in Boston Mass.… yes you heard me right, Goo Goo Dolls will be performing 7 songs with the world-famous orchestra, and I plan on wearing some nice shoes, maybe a collared shirt, I mean it’s the least I can do right? And then it's off to the festivals I mentioned earlier in the column ….. busy, busy, busy …. But we like it that way. Thanks for stopping in to visit, and we'll see you soon here in the pages of the mighty In Rock, please have a great month and enjoy the fall!
Peace,
Robby