I ended up at this show at the last minute on the recommendation of my friend Brett who is a huge Shinedown fan. We’ were at a Country music festival The weekend before shooting photos. So we listened to a lot of their catalogue, and I found them to be very intriguing. In all honesty I’ve seen them three other times but when you’re at festivals and you’re photographing these bands, lots of times you only get to see three songs and then you have to get back and edit for the live feed of all the social media.
Before I get to Shinedown let’s talk about Bush. They’ve been around for a very long time and they’re almost to the point where they’re going to become a legacy act soon. They have quite a body of work and a lot of fans that love them. The band is great, and Gavin has a wonderful voice, but I’ve never really bought into the whole thing period my issue has always been so many of their songs are just depressing. I didn’t feel uplifted by the performance. It’s not that it was bad, but Gavin spent all the time out front and rarely did you see the other three members move beyond the first mainstage. It’s a lot of work to entertain a crowd of that size so that he could probably abuse some help from his band members. Personally, I would not have chosen them for an opening act for this tour I would have chosen Buckcherry.
Onto the headliner Shinedown. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I feel they are the best rock band touring right now in the United States. Not only are they solid from top to bottom. Their songs are so infectious, along with great melody and hooks. They played nonstop for two hours and kept the fans on their feet the whole show!
They seem to understand not only how to entertain a crowd but also the extras that you need to add to a live show. They have the best pyro of any band I’ve seen this year. All of that adds so much to the performance. It punches you right in the face from the very first song with Dance Kid Dance all the way through to the very last song, Second Chance.
I was so impressed with what I saw that I’m going to go out of my way to see them again on this tour, I’m also going to go out and purchase all their records. If you’re already a Shinedown fan I don’t have to sell you on anything because you know all of this. But if you’re someone who’s not very familiar with their music and only know a few of their hits, it’s worth your time to look into it. If you are someone who loves rock shows and enjoy watching a band take over an arena, Shinedown is a must see. They are one of the few bands that even if you don’t know much about them, you will be transported for 2 hours into the rock n roll circus!
GALLERY
