In the great tradition of American Spring Break celebrations and parties, it seems rather fitting that Nickelback came to rock the hell out of Australia in you guessed it....SPRING! Why refer to Spring Break celebrations you ask, well that shall be revealed a little bit later. Say what they will about Nickelback those “too cool for school” media outlets....what you can’t take away from them is TWO sold out shows in Melbourne at the 16,000 capacity Rod Laver Arena.
Opening song “Something In Your Mouth” set the tone of the night with a blaze of fireworks and pyro and a big massive rock sound and the band didn’t let up from then on in! Pumping out smash hit “Photograph” early in the set was an inspired move....but above all, it proved just how many hit singles the band actually has. Using the massive video screen to great effect during this song, a montage of photos of the band members from days gone flashed up on the screen throughout the song.
Certainly a man not afraid of talking, Chad Kroger threw in banter between almost every song....at times this broke up the continuity of the set when you just wanted them to go straight into another cranking rock song. But referring to the spring break analogy above, during their 2 hour set, it was just like being at one giant big spring break party, with Chad Kroger as our host. Half way through the set the band brought out virtually their entire crew and fired t-shirts into the crowd from missile launchers and threw cups of beer into the hot and sweaty crowd. Sure, it’s all been done before, but who cares....the crowd came to rock and that’s what they and the band did!
The stage setup had it all, none better illustrated than during the crushing drum solo from Daniel Adair, where his drumkit became elevated and rotated around the stage. 10 minute drum solo’s aren’t exactly everybody’s cup of tea, but this guy can seriously play! Soundwise, it was faultless, it was a massively produced sound, but importantly you still knew you were at a live rock show!
As far as the setlist goes, it was pretty much a greatest hits, with the only song springing to mind that wasn’t featured being “Never Again”. “Rockstar” got the treatment in acoustic style which was awesome, but even more awesome during this song was displaying images on the giant screen of the biggest names of rock, everyone from Bon Jovi to the Scorpions to Lynyrd Skynyrd, they were all there. “Too Bad” closed out the set proper in a hail of fire, with the band returning for an encore that consisted of “Someday” and “Animals”. In a scene that reminded of New Years Eve celebrations, our lasting image of this awesome rock show was a fire and pyro storm that lasted for minutes! How much this show costs to put together each night...god only knows!
For those of us in attendance, what we witnessed was one of the greatest stadium rock shows and productions surely going around today.
