Earlier this week, my daughter and I travelled to downtown
Minneapolis for the Nickelback Here and Now Concert. The show included the band
and opening acts My Darkest Days, Seether and Bush.
My daughter and I both enjoy Nickelback’s music, so we were
looking forward to the show. The tickets listed a start time as 6 PM, so with
three opening bands we knew to go later and arrived around 7 instead. For those
who haven’t been to the Target Center, the venue for the show, it is the home
of the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA team and is very easy to get to and park at.
When we arrived and got to our seats, Seether was just
wrapping up their set. Here is a view of the stage between acts from our seats:
We obviously weren’t in the best seats in the house, but
they were still $85 a person. The final opening band, Bush, came on stage a
little later and performed a nice little show. My daughter texted her mom in
the middle of the set to say, “I don’t care much for Bush”, but I remembered
most of the songs from the radio even if I don’t know the name of any except
Glycerine. One of the highlights of the Bush set was Gavin Rossdale leaving the
stage to run to the back of the Target Center and perform from the audience –
the crowd really enjoyed it. Mr. Rossdale was also grateful to the crowd who
were wearing older Bush shirts and thanked them for being there – classy.
Finally, at 9:05 PM, Nickelback took the stage.
The show
started with Something in Your Mouth (I think) and proceeded to go through most of the
well known songs in the band’s catalog. The show included about twelve big columns
of flames that warmed up the arena, several pyrotechnic booms and lots of
lights.
Overall, the sound was good (through my earplugs) and the band sounded
like their albums albeit with the occasional f-bomb included ensuring you knew
they were not lip syncing. At one point, the band moved from the stage to a
smaller stage that dangled from the ceiling in the middle of the arena and
slowly rotated so that people in the cheap seats got to be much closer to the
band, which was nice.
Nickelback performed for the requisite 90 minutes (including
a quick break before the encore) and no more. So for about $1 per minute, we
were entertained. The main problem we had with the show was how long it went
before Nickelback came on and how short their show seemed as a result. We were
left a little disappointed and feeling that the band had just cookie-cutter
stamped out another live performance. The set list also conspicuously left off
S.E.X., which we found surprising, as it would have fit in nicely with the rest
of the show. Note to Mr. Kroeger, if you are going to talk about how much you
love the town you are in and how you don’t have to perform the next night – why
don’t you play a little longer for the crowd.
If you plan to see Nickelback, be warned that there will be
swearing from the band, references to drinking and (at our show) one girl
lowering her top and bra to be projected up on the big screens behind the
stage. The night as a whole gets 3 Mick Happies with the Nickelback music and
Bush effort/showmanship being the highlights.
P.S. It was really warm in the arena as evidenced by this
clip. That or Gavin Rossdale is the hardest working person alive.
Yes, that is dripping sweat. If you like the song, go buy it. It's on iTunes.
