Review by SueW:
With 6 gigs in 9 days, 4,000 miles to drive and 10 different hotels I won’t have much time for full reviews so this is just a few of my thoughts about the gig.

I had a really great day sightseeing in Paris but when I checked into my hotel I discovered that the festival wasn’t on the outskirts of Paris as I thought and I had a 90 minute drive to it!

Originally Blue Oyster Cult was scheduled to play at 2.30pm so I had changed my plans when it was changed to them playing at midnight. Also, as I didn’t know any of the French acts playing, I arranged to get there at about 10.30pm to just see Lou Reed and then Blue Oyster Cult.

The town where the festival was held was just like a car park with cars abandoned all over the place so I left mine on a pavement (sidewalk) with all the others!

Unfortunately by that time the festival office of the ticket company where I had bought my ticket online had closed so I had to buy another festival ticket to get in.

I thought Lou Reed was dreadful and I certainly wouldn’t go to see him on stage again.

Even though it was almost midnight and there had been bands playing all day, there were still thousands of people there. After Lou Reed finished, a French band started playing on the smaller stage so most people went to watch them so I sauntered up to about the third row in front of the main stage in front of Kasim – perfect!

Blue Oyster Cult started playing at about 12.15am and went off after their set at 1.45am. They then came back for an encore so probably finished at about 2am.

This was my first time seeing Blue Oyster Cult live and I must admit that before I knew Kasim Sulton was playing with them, the only song I knew of theirs was Don’t Fear The Reaper. Since then I have listened to a lot of their music but a live performance is always totally different.

I’m not a great fan of long guitar solos and BOC had quite a few of those. However they did go down really well with the audience!

However the highlight of the set for me was Kasim’s bass solo which was just brilliant to hear and he received a big cheer and round of applause from the crowd. (I wish the solo had been longer.)

There was also a section where they spoke about Kasim having played with Joan Jett (so they played a few bars of I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll), then him having played with Todd Rundgren and Utopia (some of Bang The Drum was played) and then they mentioned his 10 years with Meat Loaf (Paradise By The Dashboard Light) so that was another fun part.

I’ll post the set list when I’ve listened to my recording but at one part Eric asked if we wanted to hear Shooting Shark or Harvest Moon. I actually thought that more people cheered for the latter but they played Shooting Shark.

During Burnin’ For You, Buck’s microphone stopped working during the first chorus and it took a while before it was fixed which was a shame as that is one of my favourites.

The other thing which was very noticeable about Blue Oyster Cult was that they all interacted and engaged with the audience a lot (except for Jules the drummer as he sat so far back).

I was fascinated by Kasim’s bass playing in Shooting Shark as he mainly just played the whole song with only his thumb on his right hand.

Richie moved around the stage a lot, even coming over to Kasim's side of the stage but unfortunately neither Buck or Eric did.

It's good to see a band where two people take it in turns to play keyboards.

I only took a couple of photos as I wanted to watch this gig properly.

It was a long drive back to Paris so I didn’t get to bed until 4am.

Roll on Aschaffenburg on Monday!

Other Websites:

RockerParis has added the set list (above), a review and photos here.

Comments by fans posted to various messageboards and mailing lists include:

"Well, that was a great show yesterday in Montereau. The boys played roughly 90 minutes, 11 or 12 songs, in front of lot of people who stayed very late, as the show started after midnight."

"Technically, Lou Reed opened for Blue Oyster Cult!"

"Kasim Sulton is a hell of a bass player, playing every bass line as it was meant to be played (Golden Age especially) and he seemed to enjoy the moment."

The venue (taken from the KasimInfo.com Blog that day):
Tonight Kasim Sulton plays the second gig of a Blue Oyster Cult tour in Europe.

The gig tonight is at the Festival Montereau Confluence in Montereau Fault Yonne, France which is just outside Paris.

Last night they played in Sweden and Solvesborg, Sweden to Montereau Fault Yonne, France is 905 miles which will take about 15 hours to drive.

Originaly they were booked to play today at 2.30pm but now their set has been moved to midnight (6pm in NYC) which may be because of the long drive (or hopefully flight).

The other big name on the festival bill today is Lou Reed who is scheduled to take the stage at 10.45pm.

This is a two day festival and Blue Oyster Cult are the final act to play on the main stage.

Kasim Sulton with Blue Oyster Cult Gigs 2012