Here's my official review:
Ears still ringing, voice mostly gone, a f*cking amazing night!!
Three Days Grace:
Purely amazing! Great energy, amazing playing (especially the drummer, pulling off stuff I thought was double-pedal with a single-pedal...), great singing, great stage presence. If you get a chance to see these guys live, DO IT.
American Hi-Fi:
Good, but not amazing, especially when forced to follow Three Days Grace
Crowd started getting bored, and crowd surfers became a major hassle very quickly.
Simple Plan:
A very pleasant surprise
Great playing, singing, energy, everything! Not a note missed that I heard, vocals and harmony in perfect pitch, and enough energy and fun to keep the non-technically minded fans entertained. Still, the crowd was here for one purpose, and made it known:
Korn:
This was possibly the best concert experience of my life. Head was using his nickel-plated K-7 with the "Dunce" inlay mostly, and another as a backup (similar looking, didn't look too closely, but one had a single, fat bubinga stripe on the neck, the other had two thinner ones, both with stripes running right through the headstock), Munky was using a couple custom K-7s, one was flat black with a "69" inlay at the 12th fret, and weird DNA-ish inlays over the rest of the neck, the other was camoflage finished, and I didn't get a close look at the inlays (I was right in front of Head when I was standing...), Fieldy was using the stock K-5s. Jon Davis' singing was spot on, the playing was amazing, Head did the old "throw-your-guitar-over-your-shoulder" trick at the suggestion of his
guitar tech The crowd was very wild, so I was getting bumped around a LOT.
Nickelback:
Half of the crowd left after Korn (their reason for showing up quite clear), but people from the back-half of the area crowded in and filled out the crowd, which was much calmer and enjoyable than during the previous bands. To describe the set simply: F*cking amazing. If anyone out there has any doubts that Nickelback can pull it off live, put them out of your mind. The set was high-energy, high volume, heavy, and full of fun lighting and pyrotechnics (set the stage on fire in places twice
).
Overall:
I was up near the very front of the crowd for most of the sets, but got jostled around so bad during Korn's set I got moved all over the place. I stood farther back for Nickelback (almost left after Korn myself, but decided to stick around, thankfully). The show was great, the crowd, for the most part, wasn't. I would recommend any of these bands.
