Oingo Boingo - San Diego State Open Air Theatre - October 19, 1995

This was Oingo Boingo’s farewell tour in the fall of 1995 and definitely an end of an era for me. Because they used to come to Reno every year when I was in high school they were a big part of my life and I had a number of very odd experiences tied to them. The first time I ever heard them was actually when a few of us were getting ready to go to a Thompson Twins concert, a day I will probably never forget.

What is funny about Oingo Boingo is that it is probably just a footnote now in Danny Elfman’s long and prolific career in movies. I looked him up in the Internet Movie Database and he has well over 100 different film credits – from composing scores to writing songs to singing them on screen. It used to be a novelty for us to see his name in the credits at movies but now I can pick out his style even before I see his name roll by on the screen.

I still love all those old Oingo Boingo songs though, even if I don’t listen to them as much. They are still one of my very favorite live acts and I had a great time singing and dancing along every time I saw them, including this last time in Southern California. In contrast to Reno and the bay area, they always had a big following in SoCal so the crowd for this show was a lot more pumped up than I had ever seen before. It would have been great to see them in their final Halloween show that year, but this time, in the October warmth in the San Diego State amphitheatre, was still a great goodbye to one of my favorite bands.