S. Goes to Oakland - Part I - Friday

While the regular writers for the blog are slacking on their blogging duties, S. has come through to tide us over with her tale of attending the Oakland event last weekend. 

Fabiano Vieira

For some reason, the last time the PBR was in town, about four years ago, I didn't go to Oakland.   The location is ridiculously convenient for me in comparison to California’s other three events, so how could I resist this time?  Unfortunately, a Friday evening is not so convenient, especially when the event is at the Oracle Arena, and there is an A’s game taking place at the larger Coliseum right next door.

Apparently I was not alone in thinking this way. Either because of the urban area or perhaps the weekday evening and/or the economy, things were pretty sad on Friday.  They only had one concession stand open, and the cowboys doing meet and greets at sponsor booths were practically twiddling their thumbs.  The plus side of this was that there weren't really any lines or any rushing, so I was able to tell Fabiano Vieira that I was happy he was back and wish him good luck, and it's the most relaxed I've ever seen the guy with fans.  I was also able to thank Chad Berger for  his breast cancer awareness charity work and shake his hand.

J.B. Mauney gets the flame intro

The pretty sad attendance numbers certainly became entirely clear when we entered the arena.  I know people would rather see the championship night if they can only go one day, but the amount of empty seats in all levels was truly pathetic.  Although I will say, the crowd was very engaged and enthusiastic-- even Flint said something about the crowd making up for being small by having great volume.

Speaking of Flint and the entertainment in general, the Best Dressed Fan was a little girl who seemed to find him rather alarming.  During a break between the flights, they trotted out something even worse than the Stud of the Night, which I didn't even think could be possible.  It's the Kiss 8 Second Kiss Cam, where Gene Simmons et al. yell about how people should kiss for 8 seconds, and then the audience in general is forced to watch people in the crowd slurp on each other for 8 seconds, with varying degrees of cringeworthiness.  And then apparently the videos go online for people to vote on or something?  I hope the people kissing give permission prior to this occurring.  I have no desire to see any of the videos again, so I won’t be looking.  Also fairly horrifying was the video from the  “Sexiest Cowboy” photoshoot.  More on that in my next post.

 

The most enjoyable thing about this event is that the bulls were by in large decent.  I had been a little worried about this since there had been some articles about this being the last chance for some lesser-known West Coast bulls to prove themselves before the finals, and I have not had good luck with events full of lesser-known West Coast bulls.  Chad Berger and Cindy Rosser brought some pretty good ones, so that helped.  There were a few re-rides, but not an inordinate amount, for which I was extremely grateful.

A couple of the bulls were pretty squirrelly, though.  Multiple bulls refused to leave the arena without lots of prompting, reveling in a victory lap or five.  Several had to be roped.  One even ended up falling down and rolling around by the side of the exit gate while being pulled by the pickup man and his horse, who was already behind the chute area.  Eventually Julio Moreno dropped his side of the rope, since it was just banging the downed bull into the chutes and gate, and somehow this led to Shorty holding the other end of the rope and hauling on it—I have no idea how he thought that was going to end well.  Thankfully the bull seemed to tire of the game at this point and ambled out, apparently no worse for wear after his adventure.

One somewhat amusing sidebar: my seat was next to the aisle to PBR Party Barn.  The bad part of this is that there were drunken people sloshing along the aisle to and from the Party Barn all night.  The entertaining part was watching some of the cowboys who were done for the evening getting beers.  There were a few repeat customers among them; I won't name them but let's just say that none of them were from Brazil.  Another amusing sidebar: one of the in-arena announcers (I think it was Clint Adkins) said something like, “He needed that ride so he can afford diapers,” after Brendon Clark rode.  And then he said, “Wait, was I supposed to say that?" as I thought, what the heck, is Brendon Clark having a kid; we didn't know that, did we?!  No, no, we didn't.  The event was being broadcast on the Live Event Center and the radio, and immediately after this bombshell, Alli Clark's phone (she was sitting near the announcers) started to blow up with calls from friends who didn't know.  Sorry, Alli.  Everyone knows now.  The moral of the story?  Don’t tell the guys with microphones anything you don't want the whole world to know.

The face of disappointment

Thankfully it appeared that no one got too banged up at this event, although Fabiano Vieira was looking very pained after his high-step away from his bull.  I wish this guy could get a healthy season, because he’s clearly very talented.  In other cowboy news, Renato Nunes was apparently “too tired” for his usual backflip, but not too tired for a giant cheeky grin at his compatriots behind the chute.  I was really happy to see Emilio Resende and Valdiron de Oliveira start to get back into the groove, and wished Edevaldo Ferreira would have done the same. 

J.B. Mauney unexpectedly launched off his “gimme” bull earlier in the evening, so there was a lot of anticipation about his ride on the bonus bull, Stanley FatMax.  Since J.B. Mauney seems to thrive on riding the “unrideable” bulls, I wasn't surprised that he ended up riding, and it was a good, gritty ride.  I also shouldn't have been surprised that they trotted J.B. out on the shark cage to close out the event, although the ride didn't count toward the event standings.  I like J.B. in the abstract, as he is a dynamic rider, but it's very wearying the way the PBR gets so in a froth whenever he does anything (and even when he doesn't).  I'm sure Stormy Wing, who won the night, wouldn't have minded giving an interview, but oh well.

Following the event was on-the-dirt signing, which someone apparently forgot to tell the security guards about, as a fan club representative had to come over and force them to let us onto the dirt.  After that it was the usual crazy swirl of cowboys, missing some while you’re talking to others.  I was happy to catch Joao Ricardo Vieira, though, because he has a certain impish quality I enjoy and he has certainly impressed in his debut year.  While I think Silvano Alves will be very tough to catch, it would be pretty exciting if Joao could manage to win Rookie of the Year and the World Title in one year.  But if it’s either of them, history will be made and I’ll be happy.

Joao Ricardo Vieira

After this we fled quickly, trying to get out before the A’s fans flooded the area.  Alas, ball four was called as we were walking by the arena, and we ended up in the midst of them, although we met some hilarious new bullriding fans on the train whose husbands had been at the ball game while they watched bullriding, so all was not lost.

Tune in later for Saturday!  Hope this was at least marginally entertaining.

I will try to get part two up over weekend.  Or at least before too many events have passed...