Like a lot of concerts in my college days, exact dates are bit… hazy. I know it was in the Spring of 1997, but I’m not exactly sure of the date (update - thanks to BG News archives, I nailed down the date - April 11th). Unlike most other concerts I attended, this one I had a personal involvement in. The Bowling Green State University Universities Activity Organization had approached our radio station in the Fall of 1996 to get ideas on bringing a musical artist to BG in the Spring around the same time the station was researching the same concept. As I just moved into the Programming Director role, I got picked to work with the UAO and review a list of artists they had already narrowed down to based on costs.
As we were an alternative rock station, alternative rock bands made sense for us. The UAO crowd had a different idea, preferring a safe pick like Blues Traveler or The Steve Miller Band. Ultimately UAO made the final decision and went with the Violent Femmes, who pretty much a legacy act by 1997 and not relevant to our station.
Some politics went on that I wrote about at the time (and comes across as pretty immature and whiny, to be honest) and the show was not enjoyable from a personal standpoint, though the band was fine, and afterward while helping them load out turned out to be relatively nice and friendly guys.