Well, after the success in almost every way of the second annual Music Is Art Festival, held mostly outdoors and a bit indoors at Chameleonwest Studios in the Allentown portion of Buffalo, he may become a hero to even the more grizzled and cynical music community members and observers.
Takac and producer, engineer and musician Marc Hunt, operate Chameleonwest and its associated record labels and other recording
The highpoints of the festival came at the end, when Takac took the stage with the all-female basically folk rock band Anatara, as well as a keyboardist and drummer, and absolutely ripped things up with several Ozzie Osbourne songs. “I Don’t Know” began the mini-set with Takac’s voice starting to shred up a bit but still sound strong enough to bring back memories of when he was the Goo Goo Dolls’ lead singer (in the beginning). Takac dedicated the song to everybody he grew up with in West Seneca (a Buffalo suburb), smiled ear-to-ear as he extended several secret devil signs and was overcome with laughter as he forgot some of the words and one of the guitarists took over before he picked up the mike again and said “OK, I’m back.” After they ran through a strong version of “Crazy Train,” Takac laughed, “I feel like I’m in high school again,” and then led the group through “Suicide Solution,” strapping his bass on to join in for the end of the song.
Anyone standing backstage or, like Val and the other photographers, in the pit surrounding the front of the stage, knew what “special guest” meant, although there probably weren’t too many present that didn’t have at least a suspicion. From where I stood, John Rzeznik, Johnny Goo, could be seen in the window of the studio, pacing like he usually does before a show.
“How about a little Goo Goo Dolls?” Here’s my partner for 20 years, John. I was going to sing, but I think I Ozzyed out my voice,” Takac said, and the duo played two songs, “Black Balloon” and a really good version of “Broadway.” While I should have expected it, I still got a laugh out of the two female teenagers/young adults I saw holding up their cell phones so whoever they had called could see about 15 seconds of video of the show.
“I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for Ronald Reagan (who died less than a week before the Music Is Art Festival),” Takac said with a laugh. “The courts were closed Friday (when his attorney and other organizers called him about an alleged attempted injunction). What’s up with them? I got a call Friday that I should go to City Hall; ‘oh, boy,’ I thought.”
Actually, oh, boy is what the vast majority of people attending the event, including the musicians, artists and dancers, as well as those of us covering it, thought. Takac, Hunt and company ran the event as a family-friendly one without cutting back in any way in the rock and roll content, and no censorship was involved (see my comments on the performance of Anal Pudding below). Not only musicians, artists and dancers, but their spouses and significant others, were allowed VIP privileges, which was a great help when we needed just to sit down or to grab a bottle of water, although the food was very good both days. Takac himself was busy from start to finish and never ran out of time to greet or talk to anyone involved or just saying hello. He greeted Val and I with hugs and a quick update before he dragged us over to a water basin arranged in a rather Catholic manner: “So, do you like this baptismal pool?”
