 |
| |
|
| |
Live Review
by SashaS
15-1-2004
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
More on: Three Days Grace
|
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
| Three Days Grace and huge onstage fun |
|
Live: Three Days Grace
Barfly, London
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
ThreeThree Days Grace in a 40-minute blast
When growing up in a small town, Norwood, two-and-a-half hours drive from Toronto, the trio that are now Three Days Grace did dream of playing London but - due to the public demand, it is something not even the greatest truth-seekers [Messrs Bush and B.Liar come to mind] could convene. And, that is exactly what’s happened…
The Canadian band is already huge in their homeland - their next tour is arena-sized - and have made great in-route into the neighbouring, terrorist-‘besieged’, Yanksland. This maiden London date warmed up every particle of one’s body all who braved the suddenly wintry streets.
Three Days Grace achieve it with melodious rock, not too heavy but neither too mellow - the oft-comparison with Nickelback is truly unjust because they have more nous, attitude and aptitude to masterfully incorporate myriad of styles. There are passing echoes of Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Sabbaff, Alice In Chains, Tool, Rush… 3DG refuse to go for drowning-with-volume…
Songs from the eponymous debut album, due out in March, are geared up with more ferocious onstage punch, far more power than the recorded versions. The band’s enlarged to a quartet with addition of guitarist Barry, with the tallest Mohican amidst the last of the Mohawks and bearded in a fashion that wouldn’t go amiss sticking out from underneath a Slipknot mask and we mean this as a compliment, he is a b-i-g hombre, man!
The band’s onstage demeanour - bassist Brad Walst stares-down the crowd alike he were auditioning for an even more Gothic remake of ‘The Munsters Show’! - is the result of 3DG having had some six years of gigging and can kick ass, heavily - re: ‘Burn’, the CD opener - as well as go progtastic, punky, experimental at times, all rockingly grandiose.
Adam Gontier fronts the band gustily and vulnerably: he spills his soul through politics-of-selfishness, love-thoughts and experiences, small-town hopelessness, futility of wee-mindedness… Perhaps ‘Born Like This’ is a personal manifesto of Gontier whilst a song ‘Just Like You’ sums it up in the band terms. Easy to believe, maybe, but difficult to accept it as their credo: these members have the knowledge and love music to the obsessive detailing. They are not prepared to just ride into the rock rodeo and take that bull by the horns but hold it down.
And the ride was a tad strange one: video for their single ‘I Hate Everything About You’ was serviced to the UK TV as an introduction to the band. Scuzz playlisted it and originally stalled at the channel charts’ #57, swiftly dropping out but the track remained playlisted. After four weeks it scaled up the charts to peak at #4 and then remain inside the Top 10 for further dozen weeks.
Tour reports (with Nickelback, across North America), ‘Net-spread and word of mouth, brought the band over for a couple of dates (Manchester, two nights ago) and at the Barfly they caused the mosh of at least 50 fans - one-fifth of the capacity audience!
Yeah, Three Days Grace are a band - earnestly striving to make this sh*tty world [sound if not become] a better place - worth a long drive to see.
SashaS
15-1-2004
Three Days Grace album ‘Three Days Grace’ is released in March by Music For Nations
|
|
|
