My Review of Nickelback Here & Now Tour 2012

There’s nothing like the ear shattering music of a live rock concert. The music thrums inside of your soul and awakens your inner self from a deep, restless sleep. Soon, you rise up out of your seat and are swaying to the hypnotic sounds of strings and sticks. 
I’ve been to a few rock concerts: Linkin Park, Roger Waters, Aerosmith, and Iron Maiden. I’m not allowed to go to concerts on school nights so I missed out on the opportunity to see Rammstein, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and countless other bands. 
Now, I might not be the biggest fan of Nickelback, but I still wanted to go to the concert. No true rock lover can ignore the heart of millions of people living on the same beat of the drum in the same second in the same space, but at the same time on entirely different planets. 

BUSH in their hay day

Chris Traynor

The opening band that I saw was BUSH. BUSH is an alternative rock band formed in London in 1992 and named after the town the members used to live in. Since then, the band has had numerous singles on the billboard top 10. This was probably the best opening act that I have seen so far. Plus, Nickelback also got Seether and My Darkest Days to play, so that was really cool even though I missed them. 
BUSH played a lot of their hit songs like “Sound of the Winter” and “Glycerine”. Lead singer, Gavin Rossdale, had a slightly scratchy voice, but that fit the swift changing style of music. This music was more geared towards older people… like my mom who was head-banging up there with the rest of them. But I did enjoy their songs and recognized quite a few. The guitarist, Chris Traynor, had an amazing beard. And he shredded at the guitar. I wonder if he ever gets his beard knotted in the strings. 0.o That sounds so painful. 
After a few songs, the crowd had mostly trickled in. They all roared in unison to the music as BUSH played its last song. Many people were super drunk. The lights bled over a blend of their faces. They had come because the music was calling. And they wanted to see Nickelback. And so with that,

The room went dark. Blue lights shone out from the stage. A video began to play on the back of the stage. Then fire shot out from the stage, and Nickelback ran on stage to the bleeding screams of the crowd. Nickelback screamed a quick “hello”, and the fun began. 
While I’d much rather have been sitting in the back quietly observing and writing a lot like usual, there is something about rock that forces one to get out of her seat and break free from reserve. I flew out of my seat and sang along to the first song. Well, I didn’t actually know the first song, but it’s sort of a rule that when you are at a concert you need to sing a long even if you don’t know the lyrics. A blah blah blah will suffice. No one gives a damn cause no one can hear you. And besides that’s the concert spirit. Well, the sweaty, standing-up concert spirit.
Chad Kroeger had a really deep voice. He also had a great, sparkly guitar. I wonder what make it was. *_* 
Anyways, the whole band worked well together, and they made many jokes and just had a fun time. 
I have no other word to describe the drummer than epic. I sat down for a few seconds and was just swaying my head to the music. I completely lost myself in the music. And when I woke up I realized that the whole time I had been swaying in my seat, the drummer, Daniel Adair was the only one playing.

I loved it when they played “Rockstar”. I remember when I was a child and used to roll around singing that song over and over again… In retrospect I was a strange child. But that song was just a complete blast to the past. I actually filmed a video of it, but I was screaming, I mean, singing so loud that I sort of ruined it. So you can enjoy a video without me singing.

They also played “How You Remind Me,” which was a song I listened to a lot in the past as well. I really enjoyed this band as a child. I guess their later stuff hadn’t really left much of an impact on me. They played some of their more recent songs at the concert, and I found it to be really good, just not for someone like me. I prefer the Killers and Mumford and Sons. Nevertheless, the show was actually quite fantastic. The music sounded like it would on the CD which is not too common now-a-days. 

The guitar playing, the drums, the singing. Everything. Was amazing. They ripped up the stage from the very beginning. I’m not saying Nickelback equates to Rock Gods, but they expressed amazing talent and really kept pace with the audience. The crowd was a wide assortment of all different types of people, young and old. I would definitely recommend seeing this concert to everyone. There were songs they played that would relate to all types of people, like the few that I really enjoyed. Also, not only were our tickets cheap, but we also got to see four bands out of them. Plus, Nickelback played for an hour and half. Both in the middle of the stadium and on the stage to the far left of where I was sitting. I really love this band because they rock together, I have quite a few memories with its music, and that concert just brought me on a trip to the past. So go see their concert before it’s too late!

Thanks to Miriamchan for the edit.

And tune in for my next blog on Rock On.