Top Ten Opening Acts: Gear Daddies (#3)

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I continue on toward the top of my favorite opening acts. In the top three we have one legend and two unknowns. How's that for a mix? Here's the next entry. #3: Gear Daddies Obviously this is not the legend. Hailing from the suburbs of Minneapolis, the Gear Daddies released their second album, Billys Live Bait, in 1990. To promote it they were teamed up with the BoDeans, who were supporting their release Black and White. That album, to me, is where the cracks started to show with the BoDeans. I saw them 35 times in 1990, when they had no album to support but were out trying out new songs. Sadly, most of the good songs ("Movie Show," "69 Blues," "Go Johnny Go") were chunked in favor of grossly inferior songs. It was the first BoDeans album that I had to admit that I did not like. But I'll give them this: they had two really good opening acts on that tour! One was Boston's Cave Dogs, who had released an album titled Joyrides for Shut-Ins. The other was the Gear Daddies. The Gear Daddies quickly became a favorite. A combination of power pop and country, with some quirky lyrics ("I drank so much tonight, I just feel stupid," anyone?) and lead vocalist/songwriter Martin Zellar's equally quirky vocals hit a good nerve with me. I ended up enjoying them more than the BoDeans on that tour. I saw them a total of eight times opening for the BoDeans, then I saw them open for someone else (can't even remember who, that should tell you how good they were and how bad the headliner was). The band is sort of in limbo: they're not really "together" all the time (Zellar does more solo shows than Gear Daddies shows) yet they do quite a few shows around Minnesota. They are/were a fun band with some terrific music. Gear Daddies Opening for the BoDeans March-April 1991 One of my favorite Gear Daddies songs, and probably their best-known song (thanks to hockey fans), the classic about the Zamboni machine: