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03/13/2004 Aaron Lewis (Verona, NY @ Turning Stone Casino Showroom)
By Eric | March 13, 2004 11:59 pm
This was one show I didn’t think I’d ever see come to fruition… Aaron Lewis playing solo, acoustically, anywhere outside of the Springfield area, especially now that Staind is huge? No way… YES WAY TED! The Turning Stone Showroom is a pretty nice facility, the layout with 8 people to a table is different, I suppose Vegas shows are like this as well. Anyway, this was just Aaron and a guitar. Not that anything else was really needed… it was that good! He started out with “So Far Away”, and then dug right in on the covers. Pearl Jam’s “Indifference” (Aaron: “I think I forgot a verse in there, s’ok, I got the important ones, right?”), and then “Nutshell” by Alice in Chains. This was followed by “Layne”, and then the one song Staind fans have been dying to hear for years… “Black Rain”. And it’s definately a shame we haven’t gotten to hear this song earlier! “For What It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield was next, and the first real crowd participation song, “Outside”. Throughout the whole show, Aaron kept remarking that he should have created a setlist, that he wasn’t the best guitar player, and that he didn’t know how to play all of Staind’s songs on the guitar, so he was playing all the songs he knew by heart, which happened to be a lot of Pearl Jam… “Elderly Woman” was the next tune, followed by “Let It Out” (a b-side on the Price to Play single), “Redemption Songs” (Bob Marley), “Zoe Jane”, and one of the most interesting things I’ve seen and heard, an acoustic take on Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”!! This whipped the crowd into a frenzy! Aaron next took on the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes”, and remarked that he did it better than Fred Durst did. 🙂 He attempted to play STP’s Plush, fumbled through half of it before laughing and giving up, and then nailed “Creep” instead. More covers followed, one being an obscure 70’s one-hit-wonder: Stephen Bishop’s “On and On”, a joking take on “Puff the Magic Dragon” (“I don’t know the words to it, and I don’t want to…” :)), and Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”. The crowd was very appreciative of the covers, and didn’t seem to mind a bit that the set was light on Staind tunes. Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” was next, and the main set was closed with “It’s Been Awhile”. The crowd was never silent until Aaron came back out to play yet one more Pearl Jam song… “Release”, and then the last song of the night, much to the delight of myself and a couple other folks also yelling for it… “Excess Baggage”. The show was incredible, Aaron sounded awesome, and for the Staind fans that didn’t get to see this show or the one in Atlantic City, they certainly missed quite a bit.
Topics: Concerts | Tags: 2004, Aaron Lewis, Turning Stone Casino Showroom, Verona | Comments Off on 03/13/2004 Aaron Lewis (Verona, NY @ Turning Stone Casino Showroom)
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