You Oughta Know at Wizard World, Minneapolis Convention Center (05 May 2017)

The best part about this year’s Wizard World Minneapolis show is that they’ve expanded their music options… making it much easier for fans to enjoy music at the show.

Previous years, they’ve had a DJ play the main auditorium, or had Critical Hit play in the main stage, or Peelander-Z at an offsite venue (which was cut off after 20 mins!).

 

The unfortunate thing is that if you were at the smaller Kids Stage or Creative Stage (which was within the same room), you could barely hear them if the Entertainment stage was blasting full music. The kids didn’t seem to mind it, as they were generally preoccupied or distracted with photographs with Disney princesses (Belle, Snow White, etc.) or puppet shows or magicians or balloon animals or face painting. As previously mentioned, all three days, were targeted to children… thanks Wizard offering children under 10 with free attendance. As for the Creative Stage, since some of those panels may actually require talking to the crowd, I would suggest moving it to one of the panel rooms… although in fairness, the painting with Clinton Hobart was fine on the Creative Stage.

As soon as you walk into the main dealers room, you’re at the main Entertainment Stage with one-man-keyboardist
Victor Johnson, dressed as Waldo (or Wally if you’re from the UK), playing medleys of ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Twin Peaks’, ‘X-Men Opening Theme Song’, etc.

We soon found out that Johnson is also the keyboardist in local group You Oughta Know (with singer Sarah Adams, guitarist Marc Zazzaro, bassist Tony Schreiner, and drummer Joe Silberschmidt). It should be noted that the band (or Johnson) was actually not listed on Wizard World’s website, so their addition to the show may be somewhat last-minute…. although the band’s listing was printed on the paper schedule given to attendees.

As you can see from their setlist, they only cover 90s songs, with the exception of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but that’s forgivable because they probably discover the song from 1992’s Wayne’s World (based on Silberschmidt as Garth, of course).

A cover lover band is good for these kind of events, because most of the audience will know and likely sing along to some of their favorite 90s tunes.

After You Oughta Know finished their set, there were DJ Gabe and 7Days A Capella group, ending with a highly entertaining swing dance group Uptown Swing and Hudson, Master Magician (from America’s Got Talent).

For photos of all these entertainers, click here: 06-07 May 2017 and 05 May 2017.