NIckelback Vancouver BC, 2012

This night was about to be filled with a ton of rock n' roll and I was pretty excited anticipating the four acts that were about to hit the stage inside of Rogers Arena. After being disappointed about Seether's lack of 2X shirts I quickly moved forward and headed to my seat to await the opening act My Darkest Days.

The band hit the stage right on time and played a short set filled with their best material. The performance was great but the lead singer Matt Walst and guitarist Sal Costa sounded like a couple of 14 years school boys trying to be cool dropping F-Bombs aplenty. The music was fine but the epic amount of cursing made them sound stupid and took away from their portion of show.

The stage then presented us with a pretty decent set from Seether. The band is one of favorites now and was the band I was most excited to see out of the three openers. They kicked off the set with "Gasoline" which I don't like at all moved into "Fine Again" another song I'm not a fan of then the abysmal song "Broken" which the crowd seemed to like. Once they started playing their good material the band really started to tear it up. They played "Tonight" the current single from Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray then followed with a really good rendition of "Country Song". They closed their set with "Fake It" and "Remedy" both sounding great. I honestly would have much rather heard "Bleed For Me" from the Daredevil OST or "Effigy" from their current album. Instead of the opening trio but those were singles so I guess that's all you can get in such a short time slot.

The night was so far so good and I was having a great time and that would continue with a near show stealing set from Bush. Gavin and Chris Traynor put on a show that was headliner quality. Their set kicked off with "MachineHead" from their debut album and it sounded awesome. The new album wasn't ignored as they played the groovy hard rocker "All My Life" and then "Sound Of Winter" keeping the energy level high with both songs that the crowd was totally into. As Gavin worked his way through the crowd the band played the Beatles classic "Come Together" which was not only great it was bloody awesome! One of the best covers I've ever heard and verging on the best cover which is still by Gotthard. The bands performance left nothing to be desired at all and the excellent version of "Glycerine" was only eclipsed ever so slightly by the monsterous rendition of "Come Down" that proved this band still had it and could take a crowd anywhere they wanted them to go just as the pied piper did with the rats.

Now after such great sets Nickelback was up and the bases were loaded here comes the first pitch and KA-BLAM! "This Means War" knocked it out of the park for a grandslam. You knew that this was going to be a great rock n' roll show from note one of Nickelback. They kept the crowd screaming and singing with "Something In Your Mouth", "Never Again" and the sing-a-long pop-tastic mega hit "Photograph". Chad anounce one for the ladies and they did the power ballad "Far Away" not one of my favorites but I enjoyed it along with the eighteen plus thousand I was hanging out with. The band moved to the back of the arena onto an elevated round stage where they played a wicked trio of Nickelback rockers "Bottoms Up", "Animals" and "Rockstar" two of which are favorites of mine.

The band moved back to the main stage and played even more hits which included "When We Stand Together" that worked into a drum solo. The drum solo was decent and the crowd ate up the cheese hand and fist. I didn't think it was the best solo I've ever seen but I've also seen the greatest drummers that have ever existed so I'm a little jaded. After closing the set with "Burn It To The Ground" which completely kicked everyone's collective ass they left for the encore section. They played "Gotta Be Somebody" as we all sang along then finished with "Figured You Out". I was a little surprised that they didn't have any surprises being a home town show and they didn't do "This Afternoon" which was disappointing but in the end Nickelback was absolutely great and one of the best shows I've seen in a very long time. This was a real rock show like I used to see all the time back in the 80's. All in all I give this concert nothing less than four stars because it was a monster line-up and everyone delivered the goods to quote the metal god.