Staind Surprise

Sunday night, Breezy, Jake and I (along with 3 other people who don't read this blog) went to a concert at the Festival Pier. It was a beautiful night, a perfect setting to witness 3 of Dan Lacey's favorite bands: Chevelle, Shinedown and Staind. We all were there primarily for Shinedown, even though they weren't the closing act, so we had to decide whether to stay for Staind or bounce out of that joint early.

Shinedown came on and rocked out, despite a pretty short set. At around 9:30ish, it was time to choose. Do we stay or do we go now?

The group split. 2 left, 4 very hesitantly stayed. For the first half of their set, we were regretting our decision. The sound wasn't quite right and we weren't feeling the songs. But things started improving as songs we knew were getting played. They concluded the first set strong, and we thought to ourselves that leaving before the encore was pointless. Best decision we made.

While waiting for the encore some shouts were heard from behind us. At first I thought a fight had broken out, and people started pushing in the opposite direction of the stage. When we turned around, Aaron Lewis was sitting at the sound booth alone, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar. The mix-up literally turned the whole audience around while simultaneously giving the venues energy a 180. Love his voice/music or despise them, Aaron Lewis seems like a dude who hasn't let fame get to him.

He talked about how sometimes he didn't know what the heck to say on stage because he was just baffled at the fanbase he had. Then after playing "Outside" he gave what was the most memorable aspect of the show, at least to me.

He started prefacing the next song he played, and I'm going to paraphrase what he said (but I'll still put it in quotes for affect):

"Before the band, before anyone knew who I was, I used to just go around to local bars. Any place that would let me play, I'd bring in my acoustic and play. I mostly played covers, because that's what people want to hear at bars. Once in awhile, I would play this song I wrote, and people would use that time to talk with friends, get another beer at the bar, go to the bathroom and whatever else. It makes me laugh today thinking that this was the song..."

And he begins to play "It's Been Awhile", one of the bands hugest hits. I'm sure you read all this and I'm sure I didn't do it justice even one iota, but as a artist of sorts I thought this was an incredible moment in the show. Aaron was escorted back to the main stage after the acoustic sing-along, and they rocked out for the final song of the concert, as was the right move. The band won me and Breezy over completely, and we left the show more satisfied than we imagined we'd be after Shinedown finished their set. Bottom Line: Live music rocks, and if I even moderately enjoy one of an artist's tunes, then if they're good folk I can certainly enjoy a show they put on. Great times, and a great conclusion to Summer 09.