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02/01/2010 Shinedown, Puddle of Mudd, Skillet (Rochester, NY @ Main Street Armory)
By Eric | February 3, 2010 2:43 pm
[Like A Storm was also on the bill, but I didn’t get there in time to catch them.]
This show was largely a “game-time” decision for me, as I was on the fence about going. Shinedown had played this same venue 11 months prior, and I wasn’t sure I’d see anything different. With Tiffany going to bed early to travel the next morning, coupled with some friends deciding to go, I hauled downtown. I got there while Skillet was on, and quickly found Aimee and Dave. We trekked to the upper deck to watch the rest of Skillet’s set. I’d always heard of this band, but never paid attention. A quick check of Wikipedia says that they’re a Christian rock band who’ve put out 8 albums since 1996. Their stage show was pretty decent, and the songs weren’t half-bad, but it still seemed like every other rock band in an opening slot. They did have a cello and electric violin player on a couple songs, and the Apocalyptica-ish vibe on those songs was pretty cool. Whatever the last song of their set was (Rebirthing?), that was easily the best song I saw. Not a bad opener, certainly held my interest, but I wasn’t blown away.
Puddle of Mudd was up next, and I pretty much knew what we’d get from them, which was most of the hits and a couple of other tunes. That’s what we got, although they threw in a cover of AC/DC’s “TNT” that was pretty decent. Their songs tend to drag on a bit though, and I definitely found myself getting bored in the middle of the ones I didn’t know. I gotta assume their setlist has been pretty much the same on this tour, which would have made the list: Control, Famous, Spaceship, Blood on the Table, Blurry, Stoned, Psycho, TNT (AC/DC cover), Thinking About You, Drift And Die, She Hates Me.
We moved down onto the floor for Shinedown, just to the left of the soundboard. A nifty intro, and a pretty cool stage setup greeted us as the band came out. They opened with Sound of Madness, and Brent Smith’s voice didn’t sound half-bad. Devour was next, and so were the iffy vocals. The one saving grace, however, was that the other members of the band have taken to singing a hell of a lot more backup, so Brent taking most stuff down the octave wasn’t nearly as apparent, and it made for a better overall show this time. Not that he didn’t sell out just as many notes, they just hid it/made up for it better. More enjoyable than last year, for sure. The rest of the band sounded fantastic as usual, and the pacing of the show was good as well, mixing the harder stuff with the slower stuff, and the musical interludes between songs are always nice. Also, they’ve changed up the setlist for this tour, swapping out a couple songs for some different stuff (compared to the other two shows I’ve seen on this album’s run). No b-sides this time, but we got a cover of Sittin on the Dock of the Bay, and a song I was stoked to see that I hadn’t seen live before, What A Shame. The end of the main set was a medley of sorts, starting with Left Out, then into Fly From The Inside, then back to Left Out. Kinda cool, but I’d rather see both of those songs get their own billing. The encore was Simple Man and Second Chance. As I said, Shinedown’s set overall was a bit better than the one last year, the song selection was still decent, and the band sounded great. Glad I decided to go!
Shinedown Setlist:
Sound of Madness
Devour
Save Me
If You Only Knew
Cyanide Sweet Tooth Suicide
Call Me
I Dare You
(Sittin’ on the) Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding cover)
45
Sin With a Grin
The Crow and The Butterfly
Heroes
What a Shame
Left Out / Fly From The Inside
Encore:
Simple Man (Lynyrd Skynyrd cover)
Second Chance
Topics: Concerts | Tags: 2010, Main Street Armory, Puddle of Mudd, rochester, Shinedown, Skillet | 1 Comment »
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:37 pm
haha one of my christian friends made me a skillet mix cd back in 04…i listened to it once to make him happy, and it was…typical rock on the crappy side of things, with bad vocals IMO…and i just couldn’t get into the lyrics hahah