So. I had a fun week this week. Went to two shows at the FivePoint Amphitheater in Irvine, CA. Sure, the venue is basically in the middle of nowhere in warm SoCal summer weather (although it was a five mile drive away from the Irvine Spectrum which has a lot of shops and restaurants and entertainment). At least the parking was free and I was able to get in and get out without having to wait in line. Big value in that one since I spent $25.00 and $20.00 for the tickets for the two shows. Heck, I've spent that kind of money for parking alone in concerts this year. Anywho, I'm going to start my thoughts on the Shinedown show, last Sunday, the day after my birthday.
As mentioned before, there was three opening bands on this bill. The first band was Broken Hands. I can't recall much from them. They stated that they were from the UK and that this was their first time playing in California. I do recall some of the staff of the venue handing out voucher codes to people of the band's latest album. You got to get all the exposure you can take. Second opener was Dinosaur Pile-Up. Much better opener. I didn't know that it was a three piece band. Someone behind me said that this band reminded them of Nirvana, Weezer, and Foo Fighters (that sorta 90s altrock style) and I think their sound description is accurate. Heck, one of their songs they played reminded me of Foo Fighters' White Limo. Also, they stated that they didn't have a backdrop when they started the tour with Shinedown and Shinedown went out of their way to provide them with one with Dinosaur Pile-up's logo. That's pretty cool of Shinedown to do that. Anyway, they closed the set with Backfoot which Octane has been playing on the regular and probably the band's most well-known song for the time being.
Main support was Badflower and I think the atmosphere in the room really picked it up when Badflower came out. One thing, the weather cooled down considerably compared to the first band opening and even Badflower pointed that out. Another thing is that they had great energy and their lead vocalist was crowdsurfing at some point and that lasted way longer than when I saw the guy from Smash Into Pieces do it at the In Flames/Within Temptation show in LA. I think they played well enough to justify being in the main support slot for a Shinedown amphitheater tour. These guys have been making waves on active rock radio. Their songs Heroin and Ghost has been played often. Those guys were pretty busy this year as well when they were opening up for Nothing More (in which the only show they didn't play on that tour was the LA show I was at and now that I had the hindsight of seeing Badflower, I really wished they were a part of it. I would have enjoyed it more than Hyro the Hero although Hyro was good and got the room moving and pushing.) and they are doing this tour with Shinedown. They said that they will come back to their hometown of LA for their own show later this year and I might catch them at some point. I can see this band going far. Not as going as far as filling up Fivepoint, but far enough to stick around for a good while and maybe play bigger rooms like the Wiltern or even maybe Hollywood Palladium in short order.
Now I have to sorta address the sad news. Sadly, I don't think this show sold great. This place can fill up to 12,000 people and I think at its peak when Shinedown came out, I think there was around 7,000-8,000 people (even that could be an overestimate, I don't know). There was a lot of empty seats in the top 20 worst rows in like at least two of 300 sections. Yeah, I was checking Ticketmaster while waiting for the first band to come out and saw that there was a lot of seats left and that Ticketmaster was doing the buy one, get one free deals for all the sections (even the pit section where tickets were going as high as $95+). This all sounds a bit disappointing for a band that has accumulated 14 singles at #1 on the mainstream active rock charts (which I think is the most in history in that radio format. Three Days Grace may have more or the same.) It could very well be due to oversaturation since Shinedown did play in FivePoint Amphitheater last year as a co-headliner with Godsmack. Naturally, with two big named bands on the bill co-headlining, it looks more easier to have a bigger crowd than a single headliner for an amphitheater show.
One day, I wish Ticketmaster/Live Nation cares more about getting as many people in the venue and get the show sold out at a fair value that consumers would pay for bands like Shinedown and the likes rather than suck every ounce of money out of the people that's willing to go and have a nice night out.
Anywho, intermission came and Shinedown decided to curtain up and when 9:15 hit, they played on tape that short intro to Attention Attention (the song) and started with a bang (literally, with pyro coming out) with their lead single of Attention Attention (the album), Devil, they brought some good visuals. This was my view of the stage below and I think this is a pretty good view for $25.00.
After that, they played probably the song that really got me into Shinedown, Diamond Eyes, before Brent Smith decided to start his first speech of the night with the whole "I want you to look at the person on your left and your right" get acquainted speech. Onwards, they played Enemies and then played a few songs off Attention Attention (Black Soul and Monsters) and some songs off Amaryllis (Unity, Bully, and I'll Follow You) and one of their big oldest songs, 45. The crowd may not have been sold out, but they were singing along to virtually everything. Again, not the hardest thing to do when Shinedown has 14 #1 singles on rock radio and 26 singles that hit at least top 10. Also, I think the band had great energy and although people have accused of Brent Smith of either miming or using vocal backing tracks to make up for the notes he couldn't hit nowadays, I didn't spot that in this show. If he did, then I was fooled since it sounded live enough where he sang certain chorus lines that didn't sound like exactly the studio version. More like singing it in a way that doesn't strain the voice.
After they were finish Bully, they opted to take a small five minute break. Why? So that they can split up where one of the band members get their own section to interact with the people in the further sections. Here was my photo of it. Not the best quality.
From there, they played Amaryllis, Through the Ghost, How Did You Love, and Second Chance. With Second Chance getting the biggest singalong of the night where I couldn't hear Brent Smith at all or the music for that matter. It was that big crossover into other radio markets of a song for Shinedown. Afterwards, they took another break to find their way back into the main stage and in the meanwhile, they had an audio of a piano version of Linkin Park's Numb played in full which was a decent gesture as the show took place the day after the anniversary of Chester Bennington's passing. Then, an image of Chris Cornell came out on the screen and Brent and guitarist Zach Myers was back on the stage playing the first half of Black Hole Sun which again was a nice gesture as it was the day after what would have been Chris Cornell's birthday (which took on the same day as my birthday). It shows that for these big modern rock bands, the healing of these passings never ends and that the impact that Chester and Chris had on the world and to rock music is massive.
Anyway, onwards, they played their big cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Simple Man and their lead single off Threat to Survival, Cut the Cord before Brent Smith went on a speech of the usual positive stuff you would expect (we wouldn't be here without you guys, we don't care where you came from or whatnot, you guys are here now and that no one in the room has a negative energy). Then they played one of the few songs I liked from Attention Attention, Get Up, and I think I saw a couple actually dancing together on the aisle during it. A very sombering song, but one with a bright message telling us to keep going even when we are at our lowest moments in life. To close it off, they played their heaviest track in their catalog, Sound of Madness, before closing it off on a positive and upbeat song in the form of Brilliant.
Overall, I may not like the Attention Attention album that much, but the songs they played from it sounded good. The rest of the set was full of the big recognizable singles that represents Shinedown. The only gripes I had with the set is that they probably played too much from the Amaryllis album. Six songs from an album that's not in support of the tour is too much no matter what band you are. Another gripe I have is that they didn't anything from Us and Them which sucks so much since that's my favorite album from Shinedown. They didn't played anything from it as well in the free show I went to back in 2013 at the LA County Fair. I don't even mind it if they play only one song from it, but with only six albums, and you are not playing anything from a great album, it sucks that it basically tells me that the band treats that album like it never had existed.
Anyway, enough of the negatives. The positives is that their set went from 9:15 - 10:55 and even with the downtime of them transition stages and Brent Smith's speeches, which were surprisingly not that many that I anticipated, they probably went 90+ minutes of playing time with the 18-19 songs they played. That's really excellent as I thought with three opening bands on the bill, Shinedown would cop out and play like 75 minutes. Nope, they give a solid headlining set filled with good visuals and some pyro and obviously, it was worth the $25.00 I paid on Groupon.
Man, this write-up took me over 70 minutes. I had so many things I want to say and it's probably going to take that long to write my thoughts on Zac Brown Band, but I will do that later today.
Topic: Your concerts for 2019 (Read 30616 times)
