Fans converge on dazzling North Park for Goo Goo Dolls concert

Concert ReviewApril 29, 2014The Buffalo News

Spirits on Hertel Avenue in North Buffalo were as bright as the lights on the marquee of the North Park Theater this evening as fans walked in for the special, sold-out Goo Goo Dolls performance.

“I made her text this morning so we could go to this,” said Kathy Redfern of Cheektowaga, whose sister, Carolann Pagano, won two tickets for the show from Star 102.5 (WTTS-FM).

“I won tickets yesterday for their show at Darien Lake this summer,” she said, “so I couldn’t text again. This is going to be good.”

Redfern is the bigger Goo Goo Dolls fan of the two and sees them every chance she gets. The best concert, she said, was the one she saw in Shea’s Performing Arts Center in 2001.

“It was a small venue,” she said. “It was great.”

Pagano confessed that although she likes the Goos a lot, she’s an even bigger fan of Cher. She said she was in the front row at Cher’s concert last Thursday in First Niagara Center.

An even more devoted Goo Goo Dolls fan was Lisa Quinn, a fifth-grade teacher at Nardin Academy who was holding an autographed copy of Tuesday’s Buffalo News Kids Day edition that was on sale in the theater lobby.

A fan club member, she was notified of the show online and got a ticket in the seventh row.

“I go every time they come,” she said. She was at the legendary July 4, 2004, concert in Niagara Square that was drenched by a storm, and she plans to see them in Toronto, Syracuse and Saratoga Springs. If things work out, she’ll also see them when they start their summer tour in Connecticut in June.

Devotion ran even deeper among a group of 11 women posing for snapshots under the marquee. One of them held up a homemade sign that said, “Boston Girls (Heart) Buffalo Boys.”

“The heart lights up,” one of the women said. She flicked a switch, and it began flashing.

Some of the women in the group were from Boston and had driven all day in a van to come to the show, but others came from farther away.

One said she was from North Carolina. Another was from San Antonio, Texas. Still another was from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

“We all meet up at all the shows,” the woman with the sign said. “We’re just a bunch of fans that love the guys.”

email: danderson@buffnews.com

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