Seether at the Macewan Hall Ballroom - August 18, 2008
by Jillie
(With guests The Veer Union and Inward Eye)
Calgary, Alberta
My friend Kevin and I first saw Seether when they opened for Audioslave in 2005. We were, of course, there to see Chris Cornell and Tom Morello, but we left with a new favourite band. Shaun Morgan and his boys put on an amazing show. Seether once again came to our neck of the woods, this time opening for 3 Days Grace. We bought the tickets to see Seether and stayed for 3 Days Grace. Once again, we were amazed at Seether’s performance.
So, when Seether announced that their first headlining tour was going to make a stop in Calgary, we had no choice but to go. We booked a half day off work and headed up to Cow Town for what was sure to be a great show.
The concert was being held in the Macewan Hall Ballroom, a venue that, at most, holds 200 people. This would be the third concert I've attended at this venue and it makes for a very intimate and personal experience, as everyone is so close to the stage.
When we arrived, we were greeted with some GREAT news! If you bought this special shirt for $60, you could stay after the show, get autographs, and a picture with the band! It came with a free CD, too. So, naturally, I borrowed $10 from Kevin to make the even $60 and bought the shirt (which is pretty cool, I might add. My free CD pic was Disclaimer II, the only one of the Seether CDs I don’t actually own in CD form).
On to the opening acts! The Veer Union, a five piece band from Vancouver, made an immediate impression by their outfits. It was AFI’s hand-socks and gelled up hair crossed with Simple Plan’s eyeliner and sideways hats with a black lead singer sporting a Frohawk (Afro + Mohawk = Frohawk) and army fatigues. My initial thoughts were correct. While they weren’t bad, they weren’t good, either. Nothing about them was unique. Their music sounded like all the rest of the pop-rock out there, similar to their wardrobe inspirations. Furthermore, the job of an opening band is to get the crowd primed and pumped for the main event. The lead singers (Frohawk and his Simple Plan hat wearing, guitar playing cohort) were unable to get us excited about anything. The highlight of their set was a cover of Rihanna’s “Umbrella,” which was amusing but not very good. To top it all off, they fed us some story about their cash box being stolen so if we didn’t buy their stuff they couldn’t make it home to Vancouver (Shaun Morgan couldn’t have lent them a few bucks!?). All in all I was mildly entertained and somewhat amused, but I wouldn’t have been upset if they never made it to the stage.
While we were standing in line to get in the gates we heard a lot about the next opening band, Inward Eye, a trio from Winnipeg. The girls in front of us had actually driven from Winnipeg just to see Inward Eye. They outlined their numerous treks to see the band that only had a two-song EP on sale at the merch booth and were adamant that we would enjoy the band.
The three boys came out wearing t-shirts and jeans (the lead singer wore Rambo and the drummer a Muppet’s Animal shirt). They did a quick sound check and it was balls to the walls after that. Their music was very similar to that of Canadian rockers Danko Jones – pure and simple, hardcore, high energy rock infused with an infectious sense of humour. The lead singer (Dave?) had an expressive face and a great voice with amazing range. I should point out also that the lead singer was also the bassist, a rarity in the music world. The guitarist was great and the drummer (Dave’s brother) was amazingly energetic and threw some great tricks with his sticks. They played several songs with no break between the music before pausing to introduce themselves, the members of the band, and their next song. Their lyrics were a mixture of brain-candy with a touch of political opinion (one song I assume was called “Hypocritical Hop”, another about the life of rockers on the road was called “Second-Class Citizen’). At one point the lead singer, attempting to walk across the stage and play his bass at the same time, tripped on one of the stage monitors and almost took a face plant onto the stage had his guitarist not caught him, then proceeded to laugh his way through the next verse of the song. To match TVU’s plea for money, Dave begged us to buy their stuff so they could supersize their meals after the show. Had I not had to borrow the last of Kevin’s money to get my meet-and-greet pass for Seether and had Inward Eye had a full CD I would have absolutely bought it.
Finally it was time for the headlining band. Seether came out and started right away with “Gasoline,” one of my favourite tunes (I’ll point out at this time that we were standing right near the front of the venue and the moshing was so ridiculous I didn’t even last the whole first song. I had to find a spot off to the side, but still nice and close, standing in front of some very tall bikers that had no interest in jumping around). They played some more mellow stuff, like “The Gift” and an impromptu sounding song I was not familiar with, but kept it rocking, throwing in an extended version of “Fake It” with a great guitar duel in the middle. After a great drum solo performance while the other guys were refilling their drinks Shaun Morgan and the guitarist came out by themselves to perform “Broken” (which Shaun sang with his hands in his pockets the whole time). The band played all together about an hour and a half and ended with a crazy rendition of “Remedy” that incited venue-wide moshing (thanks to my non-jumping biker pals, I was safe, though, unlike the girl in the washroom after the show with the broken nose). The performance all in all was simple but rocking, just the way I like it. The light show was minimal – the stage was decorated with clear Christmas lights and creepy looking dolls, with a projector of various patterns on the screen behind them. The band was dressed like normal human beings. Shaun looked over the crowd now and then and seemed pleasantly surprised that we were having such a good time. The band mates joked around on stage with each other. It was a great, simple, hard rocking performance – definitely the best I have seen from them.
After the show about two dozen of us privileged few got to stick around for autographs and pictures. Three girls in line immediately in front of us were probably 16 years old and I thought they were going to die of excitement at getting to meet their idol (they would have been annoying had they been Backstreet Boys fans, but I found them charming because they liked Seether, instead). I got the band to sign my new shiney copy of Disclaimer II and Kevin and I got our picture with the band (oh, and I hugged Shaun. Just saying…).
The Seether bandmates, and particularly Shaun Morgan, were very humble when being thanked by the fans. Shaun seemed almost embarressed that the younger girls in the line wanted to hug him and whatnot. They were all very good sports, though, and had a lot of fun with the pictures. They just seemed like regular guys that did a little performance for a hometown bar or something instead of the much bigger and international stars that they are (they came a long way...the band hails from Johannesburg, South Africa).
It was well worth the trip. Not only did we get the pleasure of hearing a great opening band (which I will have to look up in the coming days on Myspace and whatnot) but we were treated to Seether’s best Jillie-attended performance to date and a picture of me and Kevin with the band to hang next to the one with Chris Cornell. It was a great night and I’m super happy I took the morning off work the next day.
The next concert on the block is The Tea Party’s Jeff Martin on Saturday.
So, until next concert;
Jillie
Sound Off!Comment about this article on Da' Wrestling Boards!