The Goo Goo Dolls with the Incredible Lance Diamond from the Bacchanal in San Diego, May 18, 1991. Lance was an incredible person. You can read about the Goo Goo Dolls talking about him in the interview with Flipside which is found HERE. He was a lounge singer in the Buffalo scene and was way more popular than the Goo Goo Dolls at the time. He and Robby lived in the same apartment building and got to become close friends. Close enough that Lance would help them out singing on a few songs on album, including the CCR cover “Down On The Corner” on the Jed album and Prince’s “Never Take The Place Of Your Man” on the Hold Me Up album. Lance would fly himself out, at his own cost, to help out the Goo Goo Dolls when they played the West coast. Some video of this is HERE. Lance also did a Christmas song with them called “Do You Believe In Him?” and a cover of “My Girl” on a cassette only release back in the ’80s. This is in addition to a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Bitch” which was on the No Alternative compilation album released in the ’90s.
The Goo Goo Dolls always talked about wanting to do a full album with Lance, but unfortunately it never happened. The Goo Goo Dolls kind of got big with “Name” in 1996 and then mega-huge with the song “Iris” a few years later. And with all that success, things were moving so fast that there wasn’t time to do any sort of collaboration with Lance. For years. So there was a little falling out. Lance Diamond unfortunately passed away from heart issues in 2015. I talked with Robby about Lance last year when I saw him at the Del Mar Fair and it really broke my heart when he said that he really wish he had reconnected with Lance later on.
Still, we have some video and memories. And some pictures. You can read about the whole story about the Bacchanal show HERE. I’ve was digging through some pictures on my desk and found a whole bunch from this show that I didn’t find in time to scan in for the story behind this show. So here they are!
ALL photos by Joanna Ip. Enjoy!
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