Eddie The Cop

 Ahhh Ranch Bowl, I can still smell the smell of cigarettes and stale beer. Zwarte at it's best. This is where I learned to dance, celebrated my 21st birthday on stage and spent many a nights puking on the way home. GOOD TIMES.

Whoever the cop at the door was busted me and properly humiliated me at the door for using a fake ID to come and see the tribute Doors band at age 20. I will say...when they closed my fiance helped moves them out. My picnic table in my back yard is a token from there that holds many memories. It was defiantly the cool kid spot and the years alcohol worked. ;)

how do you expect to top this performance from Slipknot?

One of the first rock shows I attended was Clever (1998) ! It was on a Wednesday night in January and only a handful of people were there. I met a guy by the name of Scott Evans. I was like this guy likes the same type of music I do and is at every show. Scott and I are still friends to this day. We would go to hundreds of shows every year at Ranch Bowl and talk about bands and music. However I would rarely ever miss a Clever show. I really didn't have a lot of friends at the time and even though I knew a lot of people not everyone I knew liked going to concerts as much as I did. Clever did a lot of shows on weekends and usually opened up for The Urge too. 

One Clever show I really remember. It was Deseo, Slipknot, some other band and Clever. I vividly remember this show because of Slipknot and all of their insane fans. I was like is it Halloween? Did I not get the message to dress up in Costume? Deseo open the show and Slipknot was next and I was like there is a lot of people on this stage for a band. Then their fans arrived and took over the place. I stood in the back and thought to myself who is this band from Des Moines Iowa? They screamed a lot and were loud, but their fans are crazy and into it. I said to myself this band is going to do big things in the future. It took 45 minutes to clear the stage after slipknot and it was like there is still two other bands after this, how in the world do you expect to top this performance from Slipknot?

-Michael

the perfect "indoor" wheelie

My friend Jay and I used to hang out at the back parking lot of Ranch Bowl during lunch time smokin’ a cig or two. One day, he brought his bicycle, and said he wanted to ride a wheelie all the way from the back door, down the aisle, past the desk and out the front door. So, we propped open the back door, and I drove around to the front door. I held the door open at the front as he executed the perfect "indoor" wheelie all the way through the bowling alley and out to my car.

We threw the bike into my Dad's station wagon as the rather ticked-off staff began to chase us away. I hit the gas slightly before putting the car in gear, and WHAM!... the U-joint of the drive train snapped in half! I sat in the disabled car as Jay quickly hopped on his bike and escaped. I had some 'splaining to do to both the Ranch Bowl, AND my Dad!

Is That Singer A Girl?

 I remember going to see Steelheart. It was early 90’s. Such an awesome show. My parents took a friend and I and they planned to meet us in the bowling alley. As we made our way to the bowling alley NOBODY was there, just my parents.

As soon as we met up with them, here walks in Steelheart. I couldn’t move and my mom could not get her pen out fast enough. My dad thought it was a girl singer, I was so embarrassed, I didn’t even bother to ask for the autograph.

-Rebecca

The Greatest Show I Ever Saw Was At The Ranch Bowl

I was there with my best pals to see the Eels. The show was amazing, but then something happened that I had not (and haven’t seen since) in all my concert going years ....

After the second encore, the lights came on. We left, understand the venue cues. 

But guess what! The Eels came out and played a 3rd encore. WITH the lights still on. We rushed back inside. The band was obviously having a blast. It made me love the Eels so much more. 

I think it is the first and only true encore, I’ve ever witnessed.

-John

snuck in to see three days grace

My cousins and friends and I showed up to see “three days grace” at the ranch bowl. It was one of their earliest gigs and we were SUPER excited to see them. 

Sadly when we got there, the show was sold out!! We had friends inside already who came out and we were panicking and pissed we were going to miss the show. Till one of our friends got an idea! 

The way they were making sure you had a ticket was by marking your hand with the letter “B” in blue sharpie. So one of us had the idea “hey do we have a blue marker in one of our cars? We could just mark our own hands and see if we can get in the show.” 

By some stroke of good luck, my cousin had a blue marker in his car, so we all wrote the letter “B” on our hands, walked up to the door and flashed our arms at security and BOOM, they let us in and were none the wiser that we didn’t have tickets! 

That was an awesome Ranch Bowl moment that we’ve never forgotten! We ended up meeting the band and getting autographs and shirts! Good thing too, because we didn’t have ticket stubs! AWESOME Ranch Bowl experience! Miss that place so much!

-Daniel

The Sex Appeal Of Playing At The Ranch Bowl

I grew up in Omaha, spent a considerable amount of time going to shows all over the place and I’m a musician too. My bands had played at several places over the years, beginning when I was in high school. In the early 2000’s, not long after forming a new band, I was FINALLY able to get us onto a bill at the Ranch Bowl and it was with a big act too. We had a heck of a following too, thanks to a bunch of crazies following us from our high school days. Our shows were packed with people from day 1. Our band started in a basement, like so many, where we had parties. When we finally broke out of that basement and onto the stage at Ranch Bowl, it felt like we had MADE IT. It sounds silly saying it now, but it really did feel that way. Seeing 311, White Zombie, STP and so many others, made it the most coveted stage around, for local bands. 

Anyway, during our first set, ever, at the Ranch Bowl, I noticed a girl I had eyes for, since we were kids. A cute blonde with an amazing smile, who would NEVER give me the time of day. I mean, it’s not like I never tried…she just had ZERO interest. She jammed and danced all the way through our set and had her eyes on me most of it. I was stunned and in shock, was this really happening? After the show I thought about it a lot and wondered if it was just all in my head, but low and behold, as we carried gear out to our cars, there she was, leaning up against the wall inside the entry way, with all those bookmark sized ‘tickets’ stuck to the wall, like some 80’s movie, just waiting for ‘the one’ outside of the school dance. Not a minute passed and she planted one on me like we had been together before, only to be separated and find each other after being apart for a long time. If I was stunned before, I was straight up blacking out now! No way was this happening, I told myself. It was in this very moment of Zen that I realized the true power of the Ranch Bowl. The total and complete power of sex appeal, that was, playing the Ranch Bowl. A girl, who never gave me the time of day, wouldn’t look my way for anything, had finally noticed me and latched on……..all because I played the main stage at the Ranch Bowl. The rest of that night was pretty damn good too! God bless Rock N Roll and God Bless the Ranch Bowl! RIP

-John Doe

Even Warren Buffett Went To The Ranch Bowl

I went to high school with Michael Greenberg. He had a band with some friends. One night we were there and his grandpa, Warren Buffett, walked in and sat at a tall table in the back corner. Thinking about the level of security the 1% usually travels with it is just cool to think he came to a crappy high school and show.

-Kelcey