….was one of the messages I received last night after the show. No, I wasn’t in attendance, but I knew it would be as I did attend the sound check before my interview with Buckcherrys’ frontman.  I was able to have an audience with Josh Todd as I had promoted the show with articles and a recent Zoom interview this summer.

I watched three songs and it was like my own personal concert without all the pushing and shoving and tall dudes blocking my view in front of me.

Speaking with Josh in the press room I asked him if fatigue and wear and tear were a factor having traveled halfway across the second largest country on planet earth in three weeks by tour bus. He said it wasn’t as he has experienced it many times before and there are areas of the States where bus rides of hours are common place such as the North Midwest.

Now, meeting Josh privately was not different than the guy you see in interviews. He is very very chill, and relaxed and confident. You can feel the charisma that comes off him.

However, what really caught my attention was the size of the man. I figure I am maybe a pubic hair under 5ft 10″ and Josh must be 6ft 5″ and super lean…not scrawny, but lean and healthy.

We have spoken about him being an alcoholic and not drinking for that past twenty something years in previous interviews and you can tell it is true just by his lack of any kind of beer gut. He probably has and people at the show last night will confirm a shirtless Josh Todd has literally no fat…which is a feat in itself considering he is 51 years old and not 25.

He was kind enough to do a couple of videos for my website and one for a woman that contacted me from London where the show had been cancelled recently for the 3rd time. Her story was that her son had cancer a few years back and they were fighting that and meeting Josh via the meet n greet was going to give her  relief of from daily struggles with her boy. She told me that he is in remission and is healthy as can be but asked me to say hi to Josh. Josh in turn agreed to do a video shout out to her and I thought that was pretty cool.

We also chatted about the reception at recent shows and he said that they were amazing.

I asked Josh what the band does on thy bus when the ride is long; “we pretty much catch up on our sleep when on the bus, and when we are up, the other guys noodle on their guitars and I binge-watch Netflix”

What is he binging these days? “ummm, right now I am into this series about Ted Bundy” (Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes.)

Have you written any songs on serial killers in the past I asked? “No, not yet” he responded.

After our short chat as I didn’t want to overstay my welcome, Josh posed for a couple of pics with me and man oh man….I need to hire an image consultant. I can’t stand the way my pics turn out. The only good pics I have smiling are when I am not aware of someone taking the shot.

Now regarding the show, I had another reader send me a message “they were fantastic and Josh had so much energy; it was a great night”

Lack Of Communication

As it turns out there were tickets to be sold for the show and a couple of people mentioned that it was about the same amount in attendance as for the Killer Dwarfs show which was around 350 or so. That is a far stretch from the 500 someone at Blaster (ownership) had mentioned to me days before and that it was sold out she was pretty sure.

This person I would have thought should have known but hey it’s not my venue. The other issue was that from what I can understand, the online service that the promoter (Diamond Mine Agency) used had cut off  their online ticket purchases for some reason. Maybe the cost for them to sell more tickets through the app outweighed them from doing it.

Had I known tickets could be purchased at the door, I could have written about it and they may have got more people in for the show….who knows.

One other thing stands out; businesses on Queen St are always hurting and going to council for things like security, more police patrols, ways to improve the area in order to attract more business, but there has to be some consistency and business savvy.

For instance, the bar directly across the street from Soo Blaster was closed as they always are on Tuesdays. But; wouldn’t you knowing months in advance that hundreds of people will be attending the show across the street; wouldn’t you capitalize on that and maybe open on that particular day?

I know that people spent a lot of money at this particular place previous hours before the Killer Dwarfs show and it is just makes sense.

But hey it’s not my establishment; I just own my observation.

Anyway, all in all; Buckcherry put on a good show for those in attendance and are now in Sudbury before Ottawa and then rounding out the Canadian part of the tour on the East coast before heading back into the States for more dates.

Still to come is my interview with Joel Hoekstra and I will get it up sometime this week.

Keep Rocking !!