Nickelback in Australia --- Live Review
Photo by Christian GrausHaving been front row for a Nickelback show in Houston earlier this year, I was very excited to hear they were coming to Australia, and keen for both my kids (big fans) to get to see them. It was my son's first ever concert, so I was happy that it would be a 'big' show.
First I went with my daughter to see both Sydney shows. We stood for the second show, and got pretty much to the front, without really queuing for long. My son and I then saw them in Melbourne. The shows were basically the same, so my review will be for the combined effect of all three.
The opening band was weird - two brothers, lead guitar and drums. I've never seen a rock band with no bass guitar, let alone for such a band to be given such a big audience. They might have been OK with a bass player, as it was, they were a weird sounding novelty act.
Nickelback started the show with "This Means War." I immediately noticed the lack of pyro compared to the US show. I had not expected them to bring all the effects they used in the US, but was surprised that the moving side wings of the stage did not get a look in. The one-two punch of that and "Something in Your Mouth" (especially with the excellent light show for the second song) was a great start to the show. They alternate "Bottoms Up" and "Never Again" for the third song, the only difference in the show when they play two nights in a row in the same place. Apart from that, the rock songs were "Animals," "Figured You Out" and "Burn It to the Ground." That's five songs out of eighteen, the rest being ballads. I personally think that Nickelback are very similar to Def Leppard, except the rock songs rock harder, and some of the ballads are actually really good. However, while I note that most of the audience was middle aged women and bored looking men, I did feel that the lack of pyro and other effects really showed me why some people don't like these guys much. They have a killer set of rock songs with a few ballads that they could easily put together, but because they play so many ballads live, without any pyro, the show lost momentum quickly and was quite boring in places. I certainly felt bad that I'd told my son his first ever rock show would have lots of explosions and there was not one, not even at the end of the last song. I still enjoyed it, and I really like some of the slower songs they did ("Gotta Be Somebody, "When We Stand Together," "Lullaby"), but some more rock would certainly have made it a lot better than it was, or failing that, a bit of pyro would have lifted the proceedings.
The next day, because we had concert shirts on, we met a lot of people who told us how awesome they thought it was, so I suspect that their perspective was very different to mine (my having seen how much better it could have been), and so long as the local fans don't know any better, I guess there's no reason for them to change it, but I would love it if next time Australia got something a bit closer to the show I saw in the US.