Buck Dharma Rides Again

Blue Öyster Cult Live with My Dad and Uncle

On December 15, 1974, Blue Öyster Cult played the Erie County Fieldhouse in Erie, Pennsylvania. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band opened for those delightful maniacs who deliberately and consciously named themselves the Blue Öyster Cult. My dad and my uncle were in attendance. It was their first concert and it just so happened to be my dad’s birthday. Then, and to this day, they are the best of friends.

My uncle kept his stub.

49 years, two months, and 11 days after that show, on a mild February night in Michigan, Blue Öyster Cult played the Royal Oak Music Theater in Royal Oak, Michigan. I am, if anything, an All-American consumer and a dutiful son, so I bought us all tickets to the show.

In 1974, Blue Öyster Cult was on tour promoting their third album. They were becoming a juggernaut. 1972 gave us the debut Blue Öyster Cult. 1973 saw Tyranny and Mutation. 1974 served up Secret Treaties. They were the thinking man’s heavy metal outfit, biker boogie, a rock and roll band absolutely drenched in the occult, science fiction, and horror. (Rob Zombie fucking LOVES him some BÖC.) The band’s manager, Sandy Pearlman, was a profound weirdo who had written a series of poems and stories in the second half of the ‘60s as a secret history of two world wars. From this project came the name - Blue Öyster Cult - about an alien race that descends to Earth to assume secret control of the planet and guide its history.

A note here: you see how ridiculous that sounds? I think about Blue Öyster Cult every time a conspiracy-addled Internet fiend starts spewing off about lizard people, the Rothchild Family, or QAnon. Be a fucking adult and start a rock band.

So I’m at the rock show with my dad and uncle, and these grown men with mortgages and wives are GIDDY. They are 49 years younger. Well, mostly. Between the opening act and BÖC, my uncle took a quick nap. Gotta conserve energy for the main event.

Through the years, the band’s personnel has changed from the early “Black and White” years, and that’s cool. The original members are all well into their middle 70s. Only guitarist Buck Dharma and multi-instrumentalist Eric Bloom remain from those days. And Buck, Buck should have had Eric Clapton’s career or at least his money. Buck should be a household name because the dude is a wizard. There’s an interesting dynamic when it comes to septuagenarians out there getting their rock and roll on. Parents tell their children to do what they love. It’s a tired cliché at this point, but it’s still quite valid. We don’t tell painters or writers to stop, but we do make fun of musicians for getting on stage and playing 50-year-old songs. That’s rubbish to me. Buck and his band are clearly still having a blast and the line for the show wrapped around the block. They’re a working band (The shirts at the merch counter said: “ON TOUR FOREVER”). This is just what they do, and from the looks of it, it beats having a regular job.

They had a blast, and as you can see, so did my dad and uncle.

And before you ask, I wouldn’t have minded some more cowbell.