Nickelback

Aug 9, 2007

Gm Place

 

After selling millions of records worldwide, touring the globe, raking in numerous awards,  raising thousands for non profit charities, and being newly inducted into the Canadian Walk of Fame, it seems Vancouver based rockers Nickelback have done it all. 

 

Forming in 1995, Nickelback reached mainstream success six years later in 2001 with the release of their third album Silver Side Up. The massive single “How You Remind Me” launched the band into international superstardom. Since then, they have continued to climb the charts, selling over 25 million records worldwide, and perfecting area rock shows to a tee.

 

 Thursday night the tour stopped through Vancouver’s GM Place. Supporting acts Puddle of Mudd, Yellowcard, and State of Shock took the stage, as the audience slowly trickled into the arena. Nickelback set was riddled with huge displays of pyrotechnics from beginning to end. From the opening riff of the raunchy track “Animals” audiences were entertained with massive amounts of fireworks, explosions, and flames heating up the sides of the stage. Front man, Chad Kroeger bantered with the audience about “B.C Bud” beer, and being a “redneck” in between songs.

 

 The band played the power ballads like “Saving me”, “Far away”, “If everyone cared”, and “Photograph”, but also tried to quicken up the pace with harder songs like “Woke up this morning”, “Because of you” and “Side of bullet” which Kroeger explained was written about former guitarist of Pantera, Dimebag Darrell, who was shot and killed onstage. The band played tribute to Dimebag, with all three jumbo screens in the backdrop playing clips of Dimebag speaking about music. The guitar solo heard in “Side of a bullet” is actually composed by Dimebag from outtakes of previous recordings.

 

The band also took breaks in between songs to, as Kroeger explained, “get silly”.  Four friends of the band, including Joey from the “Someday” lyric: “What the hell is on Joey’s head”, climbed upstage to launch t-shirts at the audience from canons. Guitarist Ryan Peake, stepped up to the microphone singing a cover of Elton John’s “Saturday Nights alright for fighting”.  And, drummer Daniel Adair got him moment in the spotlight as the rest of the band exited, and his drum riser slid to the front of the stage, where he pounded away for a good five minutes.  And finally, Bassist Mike Kroeger, and Peake unsuccessfully tossed about two dozen red plastic cups filled with beer onto audience members upfront, spilling most of the liquid before it reached the mouths of thirsty fans.

 

Nickelback played “How you remind me” and “Too bad” off of Silver Side Up before saying goodnight.  Deafening screams and cheers filled the arena, until they emerged for an encore. Seated on stools with acoustic guitars, Chad asked the audience, “How many of you want to be rockstars?” before launching into the country rock track.  The band plugged the electric guitars back in and closing the night with “Figured You out”.  Before exiting the band took the time for one more huge display of pyro and fireworks, with white streaks of smoke shooting up towards the rafters from the four corners of the platform stage.

 

With five albums under their belt, the band neglected to play and any tracks off of Curb, and State; they only played three tracks off of their most successful album to date, Silver Side Up.   However, distracted by all the fancy pyro, the audience didn’t seem to mind. Nickelback know how to please mass audiences, and have tailored their show to follow all the clichés of rock shows, from pyro, to banter about booze and drugs, and constant use of the f-word; the audience even complied, throwing bras on stage.  After traveling across Canada, Nickelback continue their tour heading south of the boarder to various American cities. The tour will finish early September and the band will head back to work on their upcoming album rumored for release late 2007 or early 2008.