Blues Traveler performing “Sweet Home Chicago” "Auld Lang Syne" “1999“ Optimistic Thought 12/31/1998

Blues Traveler performing “Black Cat Dies” into “Sweet Home Chicago” into "Auld Lang Syne” then after a little celebration, the band launches into a cover of Prince’s “1999” into “Optimistic Thought” to ring in the New Year at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois on December 31, 1998.
Blues Traveler New Year's Eve History:
Every New Years Eve, starting in 1990, in New York City, Blues Traveler would ring in the New Year. The first was at the Roseland Ballroom, then at the New Paramount Theater, then back to Roseland and eventually, Madison Square Garden. The first year, the Cat is "simply beaten by band members and thrown lifelessly into the savage crowd". In 1991 at the Paramount Theater, curiosity kills the cat when it opens an exploding garbage can. In 1992, Paramount Theater the Cat dies in a motorcycle accident, a reference to John's accident only two months earlier. In 1993 at the Roseland Ballroom, a brave Cat saves an old lady from thugs on the subway, only to be beaten up by the old lady herself and thrown in front of the train. In 1994 back at the Roseland Ballroom, the cat 'crowd surfs' to the front of the stage during the Wobbling Surfer and is eaten by a shark. In 1995 the forth New Year's Eve show was the Roseland Ballroom and curiosity rears its ugly head again as the Cat "falls into the musical machine which he had been trying to feed and he himself is packaged, squashed flat and marketed". In 1996, Madison Square Garden: "Kat Kong" (in celebration of the band making it "big" climbs the Empire State Building and is shot down by airplanes. In 1997, the band moved the show to Pompano Beach, Florida, where the cat is caught in the middle of a DEA drug bust gone bad and shot full of holes. In 1998, the band move once again to Chicago, IL where the Cat loses its ninth and final life during a reenactment of the great Chicago fire...but a little black kitten is rescued by a brave firefighter. This was the last official Blues Traveler New Year's show and the final one with bassist "Brooklyn" Bobby Sheehan. The 1999 - 2000 show was never meant to be.

[@RunAround13]

This ones excellent, wish I was there!