Doug Flutie and his band, The Flutie Gang, played two shows at the Rat last Thursday night as part of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College’s Pub Series. The band played a mix of originals and covers by such artists as Lynyrd Skynyrd and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
The Flutie Gang features Doug Flutie on drums, his brother Darren Flutie on guitar and Bobby O’Donnell on keyboards. The band also includes two members of the Boston band The Mudhens, Michael Gauvin Smith on guitar and Tom Groleau on bass.
Groleau, O’Donnell and Smith all sang, while Doug said, “I refuse to sing.”
Doug Flutie said the band usually does shows for charity. The shows in the rat benefitted the Susan G. Cohen Breast Cancer charity and the Doug Flutie Junior Foundation, which helps autistic children and their families. “The primary goal is to help the families,” he said. “The charity aims to create awareness about autism. Right now we’re lobbying for a bill for more research.” Flutie said that his charity and another one combined have raised more money for autism than the government has.
Although the shows in the Rat were for charity, they were also “a fun thing,” Flutie said. “But it’s weird to be up on stage at BC.”
The band played about an hour long set for the 7 p.m. all ages show, and about an hour and a half for the 9:30 p.m. 21+ show.
At each show, the band played about half of the songsthat are on their new album entitled, “Ramblin’ Scramblin’ Man.”
The Flutie Gang played “Mustang Sally” by Wilson Pickett at both shows, and at the first show Flutie let Danielle O’Banion, a member of the women’s basketball team, sit on the drums.
The band really got the crowd going at the first show with its opener of Creedence’s “Fortunate Son,” a song which was later a request at the second show.
The Flutie Gang also covered the Barenaked Ladies’ “The Old Apartment” and Stone Temple Pilots’ “Plush,” which was a “request from Doug” at the first show.
The Flutie Gang closed out the second show with a song that had everyone singing along, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”
In fact, Flutie said that the band opened up for Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Super Bowl and will be opening a couple more shows for Skynyrd in the future.
Bo Diddley, who also played at the Super Bowl, offered the Flutie Gang a chance to come out on the road with him.
“But we just weren’t ready to make that type of commitment yet,” Flutie said.
During the show, Flutie noted that The Flutie Gang recently sold out two shows in Las Vegas. The shows in the Rat, however, did not have close to capacity crowds.
Nando Difino, UGBC Programming Director and A&S ’00, cited advertising as the main problem, at least up until Thursday.
“The problem with the advertising was people didn’t think it was Doug Flutie himself, that The Flutie Gang was just the name of the band,” he said. “If people got the point that it was Doug, they would have come to see it. He’s pretty much the biggest name to come out of BC. He made a name for this college 15 years ago.”
Difino noted that there was a last minute advertising push on Wednesday night, in which people hung signs and balloons all over campus.
“You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing the signs,” he said. “We went for a ‘Welcome Back Doug’ theme to sort of have a pep rally atmosphere.”
Difino said he would have liked to see the shows sell out because of the good cause that they benefit and the fact that the band is “legitimately good.”
“I think BC missed one hell of a show,” Karen Hoff, A&S ’03, said. “I really liked it because it had a good rock sound.”
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