I really don't understand how these guys got on all the haters' lists. They have great foot stomping tunes and they have an awesome live show, although it wasn't what I expected at all.
The show was surprisingly not really about their music. They played their hits of course, but they also played snippets of other tunes just to get the crowd singing - songs that everyone knew. They interacted with the audience ALOT. The stage show visual was amazing. There was more pyrotechnics and fireworks than any other show I have ever seen, and let's face it, I've seen alot of shows.
I have read reviews of concerts where the journalist has said things like, "...and the lead singer was able to achieve an intimacy with the crowd that gave the show that small barroom feel...", but last night was the first time I ever felt it. Kroeger laughed, joked, told stories, drank with us, made us sing and jump. By the end of it I felt I knew him, and not just him, the whole band. He was so personable and just so....casual. That is a truly unbiased opinion because, unlike other lead singers that strut their manly charisma and have the girls swooning, he's not that good looking and really doesn't have a huge stage presence, so I don't have concert lust to mar my opinion. Half of me is convinced he's gay, because of the way he moved and talked. Which is neither here nor there or course, but I was pretty shocked at first. So even though his rock star charisma is the lowest I have ever seen, he was still able to manipulate the entire audience into falling for him. By the end, if he had told us all to jump off the High Level, there would have been 15,000 bodies in the river in the morning.
So how did he do it? I don't know exactly, I'm still in shock. The whole thing was an entertaining show, not just a rock concert. The music was almost secondary to his little stage performance. It was just so different from anything out there right now in the rock concert scene. It reminded me a bit of the old Grand Ole Opry shows my parents used to take me to. Guy tells a joke, plays a tune, gets the crowd to sing along....night passes quickly and you feel like you've been entertained for two hours.
I couple of days ago, I read an article about a 43year old lady, married with two kids, who saw the band in 2005 and has been concert-chasing them ever since. In that time she has seen over 40 of their concerts, leaving her family behind and following them all over north america and now Canada. She says she does it because the show blew her away so much. As you may know I have done a bit of concert chasing for certain bands in my day. If a band I like is on a Canadian tour I might see them here, then Calgary, Grand Prairie, maybe Red Deer, all pretty close locations. But I have also flown to Toronto, Detroit, Vancouver, Chicago all in the name of music. But Australia? That is a whole different level of commitment. Financially I just would not do it. So when I heard about this lady, I wondered what in the heck the big deal was. And now I know.
This band's live show is....undescribably awesome, and I congratulate the band for doing something different and original.
Of course, SO hated it because it wasn't your standard traditional concert, which brings me back to the first sentence of this blog. WHYYYYYY do people love to hate this band? Someone said haters are haters so they are going to hate, but this hater movement seems to have really built. Everyone is quick to say they hate them, because eveyone else does, yet this band is the most successful north american band since 2000. All their shows are old out. Their records have sold 27 million copies. They were second in gross profit in the 2000-2010 decade only to, if you can believe it, the beatles.....uh, maybe that's it. Maybe the US crowd just isn't ready for a change this drastic if they have not let go of the beatles yet.
I have no explanation that makes sense. All I know is, I'll be there when they come back to town. Without SO - anyone want to see a concert with me? Obviously I'll have to find a new partner for this one.
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