It’s summer, it’s a Saturday night here in Melbourne and tonight is as good a night as any for a massive dose of stadium sized rock courtesy of Nickelback and Bad Wolves. Out here on their Feed The Machine world tour, the Nickelback juggernaut shows no sign of slowing down with tonight’s Melbourne show the last of their Aussie run being a virtual 15,000 strong sell-out.
Bad Wolves took the stage in frantic style to deliver a hard hitting set that had the crowd jumping, arm waving, singing and “lighter” waving. No mean feat to get this Nickelback strong crowd pumped for the headline act. The collective of the L.A based five piece are no strangers to big stages, having been in the likes of In This Moment, DevilDriver, Divine Heresy, Snot and God Forbid. Theirs was an intense set, with the Monster Energy wrist banded singer Tommy Vext sharing his own personal experience of suicide to intro Remember When. There’s probably no better example where they are at in a musical style sense, than their cover song medley of QOTSA No On Knows, System Of A Down’s Chop Suey and Nirvana’s Bleach. Heavy, groove based metal. The crushing Office Down was dedicated to Pantera’s Vinnie Paul, whilst their cover of the Cranberries Zombie in memory of Delores O’Riordan had the packed stadium waving their mobile phones. The band didn’t leave wanting on stage, giving us a good dose of what Bad Wolves are all about, also cramming more f#$s and mothertruckers into the set than minutes.
Seeing the array of t-shirts wandering around in between sets, it’s no better way to get a sense of who Nickelback‘s crowd is made up of here tonight and their musical backgrounds – Scorpions, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Red Hot Summer (The Angels, Ian Moss, Jimmy Barnes…), Thunder, Eclipse, Ozzy Osbourne and of course a whole bunch of Nickelback t-shirts themselves.
Hitting the stage to a video animated backdrop of an opening doors and kick-ass light display, it was a heavy start to the set with tour title track Feed The Machine and an oldie but a goody in Woke Up This Morning from 2001’s Silver Side Up kicking things off. Frontman Chad Kroeger doesn’t mind a chat or a drink and it was community service announcement time with Chad reminding us “good citizens of Australia, it’s Saturday night and I’ll be consuming a lot of alcohol tonight….because I’m at a rock concert too!” And with that we are introduced to Brad….the man served with the job of bringing numerous Jagermeisters to the stage this evening,
Mega-hit Photograph made an early appearance, much to the delight of the crowd and myself, which just like it’s recorded version, and is lush with backing vocals and production. Following up with Far Away and then the rarely played What Are You Waiting For, the lushness continued for a few more songs yet, as did the vocal effects and multi microphones.
Was great to see a few more obscure tracks in the set tonight, with Hangnail taking things back to 2001 a deep cut from the Silver Side Up album. Following on from the prior three songs, the heaviness of Hangnail is where Nickelback are at their most muscular and metallic. With another shot, another roar of Cheeeeers and a guitar change, it was time for Something In Your Mouth, intro’d by Kroeger as “a song with silly lyrics, but I love seeing you guys every night singing along to you’d look so much cuter with something in your mouth….”
Guitarist Ryan Peak get’s lot’s of opportunities to shine tonight, beyond just his shredding guitars, taking the second verse vocals on the mega-smash hit Hero and too right, the man can sing and I think he knows it! An awesome song to hear live and definitely a popular one with the crowd tonight. Someday kept things in the mid-tempo range and after an interlude of falling rain and darkened stage, the lights reveal Ryan Peake sitting at a piano before the band take it away with the soaring Lullaby. Maybe it’s just me, but definitely an understated song in the Nickelback catalogue that I appreciate more and more each time I hear it.
The barnstorming riff of Animals was played by not two, but three guitarists tonight, with Jess from the crowd being brought up on stage to rip through this monster song with the band. Don’t know what Jess’s background is, but she clearly knew her way around a guitar and got to live out a rock star moment! When We Stand Together was the crowd sing along moment, whilst Rockstar gave a guy and a gal a chance to live out their inner rock stars taking the vocals on this one, great effort by the guy who clearly knew this song inside out and owned the stage! One thing about seeing Nickelback live, it can definitely be a bit of a stop – start affair at times, with stage banter, crowd banter, Cheeers!!! and breaks in between songs.
Gotta Be Somebody sounded every bit as Def Leppard / Mutt Lange massive live, as it does on their chart topping album Dark Horse, highlight of the set for me, but that’s just me being Def Leppard biased! With 20+ chart topping singles and over 50 million albums sold worldwide, I was a little surprised to see How You Remind Me getting one of the bigger reactions here tonight. That old nugget of a song that broke the band back in 2001 and great to see it hasn’t been forgotten amongst the avalanche of hits that have followed in the years since. Perfect way to close out the set and yes indeed….we are having fun yet!
With one of the loudest demands for an encore that I’ve heard in many a while, the band returned to the stage finishing the way they started, loud and proud. Million Miles An Hour and Burn It To The Ground are Nickelback at their most riff-tastic and heaviest and the energy during Burn It To The Ground was off the charts. With neither the band, nor their legion of fans showing any waning interest in Nickelback, expect this juggernaut to keep on rolling in the years ahead. With the general state of the music industry and the place of rock music within it, we need bands like Nickelback touring this world keeping the legacy of live music and the fun of stadium rock shows alive and well! Cheeeeerrrsss guys, tonight was ace!
