Nickelback, Monster Truck @ Allphones Arena, Sydney (22/05/2015)
It was a dark and stormy night in Sydney, the ground around Sydney Olympic Park was littered with broken umbrellas and the crushed dreams of Parramatta Eels fans. I headed towards Allphones Arena, keen to find out what the night had in store for me.
In 2001, I bought and fell in love with an album called Silver Side Up, an album by a band which would later become one of the most hated and ridiculed bands on the internet. A song they released 10 years ago has recently resurfaced in the form of several 9 second parody videos, amassing millions of views between them. Nickelback listeners claim the top spot in Buzzfeed’s list of “People You Need To Unfriend On Facebook Immediately”, and if Buzzfeed says it, it must be true. Despite this tirade of ridicule thrown on them, Nickelback are still considered one of the most successful rock bands, having sold over 50 million albums worldwide. |
So I went into this concert as a bit of a closeted Nickelback fan, wearing my Groucho glasses in case I see someone I knew, very unsure what to expect. And to sum it up neatly, despite a few hiccups, they rocked Sydney.
Starting off the set with Million Miles an Hour, a song off their new album, the below-capacity crowd made enough noise for two stadiums worth of people. One thing worth noting is that the sound was almost perfect. I have been on both extremes of the spectrum with gigs at this particular venue, where it has been so loud my ears rang for three days, and another gig that was so quiet I could hear the conversation of the people sitting two seats away from me. But this is good. This is perfect.
Then they played their second song, Something In Your Mouth. If the title is not enough to give it away, maybe give the lyrics a quick Google, and you might understand my particular feeling at the time of “this song is pretty fucking gross”. Not to mention, whoever was operating the crowd camera for the entire show seemed to only point it at attractive women under the age of 40. If you took the crowd camera as a survey of the crowd, it was probably 90% attractive young women, 10% “other”. While a lot of people probably would not consider this that much of an issue, and maybe I am just being overly sensitive. But I digress. After that we had a thundering rendition of Photograph, where the crowd nearly drowned out Chad Kroeger. And from there the night was in full swing, and I was thinking “this isn’t too fucking bad”. Then we hit a roadblock. A roadblock that had me thinking “How the hell’d we wind up like this?”
The stage soon resembles some sort of hillbilly rally, with trays and trays of red cups of beer, t-shirt cannons (at a concert? What?) and the closest thing to monster trucks that they could get on the stage. Their support band, appropriately called Monster Truck. The riff for Metallica’s Master of Puppets hits, tshirts are being cannoned around the stadium, and beer gets tossed onto the crowd. Note I said onto. This isn’t a fun “Hey, drink beer with us” this is literally just tossing beer all over the people who paid a hundred and fifty bucks to come see you. When you have people waiting hours on their feet in a mosh pit to see your band, you know what they would appreciate? Bottles of water. Not being covered in sticky, mid strength beer. Or maybe I am just old fashioned; because everyone else seemed to fucking love it. Master of Puppets turns into Pantera’s Walk, and my confusion is growing. For the third or fourth time tonight, Chad mentions that he wishes he was on acid. We get it, Chad, you do drugs, that’s cool. In my head, he is beginning to resemble an Eshay lad, with a pot leaf drawn on his snapback and bumbag, so everyone knows how rebellious he is.
Walk stops, Monster Truck, empty beer trays and empty tshirt cannons leave the stage, and I am left wondering what the hell just happened, and how mad I would be if I was covered in beer. This doesn’t last too long though. As I mentioned coming into this, my favourite childhood album was Silver Side Up. I knew every word to every song on that album. They launch into my favourite song from that album: Too Bad. The weird experience I just had is quickly pushed from my mind as I think “This song is fucking awesome”. And apparently the band thinks so too, as at the end of the song, Chad makes a note to their management sitting out the back that tonight’s version of Too Bad will feature on their next DVD.
A few songs later, we get into the inevitable crowd karaoke where we are told that our rendition of Summer of ‘69 was second best, behind Brisbane. This was met with thundering boos, which I am sure had absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming State of Origin games. Chad gives us a chance to redeem ourselves with Hotel California. Which of course is a terrible idea because the crowd only knew the first two lines, and the chorus. The bit between those two was just a sort of strange, undecipherable murmur coming from the crowd. But apparently, that was enough to put us in front of Brisbane! Because you can’t tell a city they suck, right?
They close the night out with three of their biggest hits from three different albums, Rockstar, Figured You Out and How You Remind Me, and leave the stage to a bigger ovation than the one they were greeted with. After a short delay, they come out for an encore, surprisingly enough led by a cover of Foo Fighter’s Everlong, sung by backing vocalist Ryan Peake. They play one more song, Burn It To The Ground, and leave the stage with a promise that they will be back.
I ponder what I have just watched, take off my Groucho glasses, and leave the venue. I think I might actually tell people that I went to this gig, instead of lying and saying I spent the night at home. Because despite the ridicule I received from my mates upon telling them I was going, I am pretty proud to say that that’s where I spent the night. Because despite a few strange intervals, underlying sexist tones and clichéd city vs city karaoke rivalry, they put on a bloody good show with a lot of effort, a lot of heart and a lot of rock.
Britt Andrews
Starting off the set with Million Miles an Hour, a song off their new album, the below-capacity crowd made enough noise for two stadiums worth of people. One thing worth noting is that the sound was almost perfect. I have been on both extremes of the spectrum with gigs at this particular venue, where it has been so loud my ears rang for three days, and another gig that was so quiet I could hear the conversation of the people sitting two seats away from me. But this is good. This is perfect.
Then they played their second song, Something In Your Mouth. If the title is not enough to give it away, maybe give the lyrics a quick Google, and you might understand my particular feeling at the time of “this song is pretty fucking gross”. Not to mention, whoever was operating the crowd camera for the entire show seemed to only point it at attractive women under the age of 40. If you took the crowd camera as a survey of the crowd, it was probably 90% attractive young women, 10% “other”. While a lot of people probably would not consider this that much of an issue, and maybe I am just being overly sensitive. But I digress. After that we had a thundering rendition of Photograph, where the crowd nearly drowned out Chad Kroeger. And from there the night was in full swing, and I was thinking “this isn’t too fucking bad”. Then we hit a roadblock. A roadblock that had me thinking “How the hell’d we wind up like this?”
The stage soon resembles some sort of hillbilly rally, with trays and trays of red cups of beer, t-shirt cannons (at a concert? What?) and the closest thing to monster trucks that they could get on the stage. Their support band, appropriately called Monster Truck. The riff for Metallica’s Master of Puppets hits, tshirts are being cannoned around the stadium, and beer gets tossed onto the crowd. Note I said onto. This isn’t a fun “Hey, drink beer with us” this is literally just tossing beer all over the people who paid a hundred and fifty bucks to come see you. When you have people waiting hours on their feet in a mosh pit to see your band, you know what they would appreciate? Bottles of water. Not being covered in sticky, mid strength beer. Or maybe I am just old fashioned; because everyone else seemed to fucking love it. Master of Puppets turns into Pantera’s Walk, and my confusion is growing. For the third or fourth time tonight, Chad mentions that he wishes he was on acid. We get it, Chad, you do drugs, that’s cool. In my head, he is beginning to resemble an Eshay lad, with a pot leaf drawn on his snapback and bumbag, so everyone knows how rebellious he is.
Walk stops, Monster Truck, empty beer trays and empty tshirt cannons leave the stage, and I am left wondering what the hell just happened, and how mad I would be if I was covered in beer. This doesn’t last too long though. As I mentioned coming into this, my favourite childhood album was Silver Side Up. I knew every word to every song on that album. They launch into my favourite song from that album: Too Bad. The weird experience I just had is quickly pushed from my mind as I think “This song is fucking awesome”. And apparently the band thinks so too, as at the end of the song, Chad makes a note to their management sitting out the back that tonight’s version of Too Bad will feature on their next DVD.
A few songs later, we get into the inevitable crowd karaoke where we are told that our rendition of Summer of ‘69 was second best, behind Brisbane. This was met with thundering boos, which I am sure had absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming State of Origin games. Chad gives us a chance to redeem ourselves with Hotel California. Which of course is a terrible idea because the crowd only knew the first two lines, and the chorus. The bit between those two was just a sort of strange, undecipherable murmur coming from the crowd. But apparently, that was enough to put us in front of Brisbane! Because you can’t tell a city they suck, right?
They close the night out with three of their biggest hits from three different albums, Rockstar, Figured You Out and How You Remind Me, and leave the stage to a bigger ovation than the one they were greeted with. After a short delay, they come out for an encore, surprisingly enough led by a cover of Foo Fighter’s Everlong, sung by backing vocalist Ryan Peake. They play one more song, Burn It To The Ground, and leave the stage with a promise that they will be back.
I ponder what I have just watched, take off my Groucho glasses, and leave the venue. I think I might actually tell people that I went to this gig, instead of lying and saying I spent the night at home. Because despite the ridicule I received from my mates upon telling them I was going, I am pretty proud to say that that’s where I spent the night. Because despite a few strange intervals, underlying sexist tones and clichéd city vs city karaoke rivalry, they put on a bloody good show with a lot of effort, a lot of heart and a lot of rock.
Britt Andrews