After falling immediately in love with White Reaper’s latest album, Asking for a Ride, I decided I couldn’t wait a whole month to see them play live near me. Thus, Friday evening I took a little drive down to Columbus to catch them with a friend!
Having been at Newport Music Hall a handful of times in the past, I can confidently say it’s the only time I’ve ever seen it that packed. I was surprised, but I wasn’t the only one, as bassist Sam Wilkerson shared in similar sentiment in saying, “we were not expecting this many people to be here tonight!” It was clear that the crowd was a huge fan of the band – I don’t think people stopped moving the entire set! Hands down the most funny thing I saw was a bra get thrown onstage and practically right into the hands of keyboardist, Ryan Hater, which then he immediately tossed back. Another neat fact from the show was learning that the parents of lead singer Tony Esposito were standing right behind us! I guess Columbus could have been considered a kind of hometown-adjacent show, given that the band originated only a few hours away in Kentucky. Esposito shared that he was actually born in Columbus! Learn something new every day.
Given the whole parents of it all and the crowd being super-hyped, we actually got two more songs on our set than the other dates of the tour so far – winning! They did a nice mix from all of their prior albums, but I was extra impressed with how many songs they incorporated from the new album! Sometimes bands don’t play more than the singles released, which those of course made the cut, but we also got treated to “Funny Farm,” title track “Asking for a Ride,” and “Bozo”! My favorite song off the album is “Getting Into Trouble w/ the Boss” which didn’t make the set, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that it does on a future tour. The only other song I was sad didn’t make the set list was “1F” off their last record, You Deserve Love, but I was pleased with other crowd favorites like “Real Long Time,” “Judy French,” and “Make Me Wanna Die.”
The little extra bits we got came off of the band’s first two records in the form of “BTK” and “Conspirator” and the crowd went bananas for those. As someone who recently revisited You Deserve Love, I was happy to hear “Raw” and “Ring” make the cut. Aside from playing a lot of great songs from their own discography, they even managed to squeeze in a cover song, “Only a Shadow,” by Cleaners from Venus, which is the only time we didn’t see a guitar in Esposito’s hands. It was nice to see that change and it gave Hunter Thompson a chance to really show off his chops. Overall the guys just put on a really fun show. It was high energy and they had great interactions with both each other and the audience. Opening band Narrowhead could take a few lessons in that regard, but Taipei Houston was good at getting crowd involvement. Did you know this two-piece is made up of Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich’s sons?! I didn’t either until that night.
All in all, I’m so glad I went down for the show and now I’m just counting down the days until I get to see them again. Did I also mention that I get to see them at a music festival later this spring, too? Well, I do, but I say there’s no such thing as too much White Reaper.