Three Days Grace Live Report

What better way to break your gigging duck for the year than a pretty much sold out show at the Forum on a Friday night. Granted it was cold outside but thankfully it was pleasantly warm inside. Two bands on show tonight, the support being a band called We Are The Ocean and the headline being Canadians Three Days Grace. I knew right off the bat that this was a different gig than I normally would go to. Not so many black shirts were in attendance. Instead plenty of normal regular young people who like rock but not necessarily heavy metal. I knew it would be like that anyway as £DG attracts all sorts of fans judging by the queue. There were a few older rockers but I would guess that the majority of the crowd were of the 16-25 banding. Any how I really enjoyed Human, their album from last year so I thought let me get a ticket and check them out. I got a nice seat at the front row in the balcony and settled down to see what 3DG can deliver live.

First up were WATO as I'll call them 'cause I'm lazy. These guys played modern angsty rock with rather a good singer guitarist front man. Their songs were not as heavy as 3DG but they were OK in parts. The crowd was respectful and quite a lot of people seemed to be enjoying WATO. I don't think I'll check them out on their studio material but they were a suitable warm up for 3DG.

At just gone 9pm, the intro for 3DG started up and I'm sure it's from some old film. It deals with the concept of humans turning into machines etc as does the whole album basically. The band strides on and immediately they sounded a whole lot heavier and better than WATO. They opened with perhaps the catchiest and best tune from Human, namely I am Machine. The chorus was soon being screamed by the whole of the arena and the band's singer had us eating out of his hands as the crowd was almost drowning him out. A great start indeed. More songs immediately followed and although I like previous 3DG albums I am not a fan enough to remember them off by heart. Unlike our young audience down below on the floor who were literally bellowing every single line back at the singer as he was singing them.

The moshpits soon started and they weren't vicious or anything like that, just regular kids having a good time bouncing into one another. This isn't death metal moshing and there does seems to be a slight difference between that and what these youngsters were up to. The band continued in perfect form as every song they sang was blessed with pretty much a huge chorus. These guys just know what makes a song cool and memorable. More songs were played from the new album such as the awesome pairing of Painkiller and Human Race which brought the house down comes chorus time with mass participation.

The band played on till pretty close to 11 before calling it a night. The chants of "Three Days Grace!" were soon repeated till people were blue in the face and they returned for a nice encore of their anthem Riot with the singer giving the crowd the right to do just that and the floor did indeed resemble a riot though a fairly orderly one lol! The 3DG chants soon started again but the show was over now and the band left the stage, sending the masses down below into the chilly night, tired but happy. A good start to the gigging year and something a little different than my normal live experience especially with the younger crowd.

I Am Machine
Just Like You
Chalk Outline
So What
Pain
Break
Human Race
Home
(with 'Sober' by Tool snippet)
Drum and Keyboard Interlude
Drum Solo
Painkiller
Fallen Angel
The Good Life
(with 'The Beautiful People'… more )
I Hate Everything About You
Never Too Late
Animal I Have Become

Encore:
The High Road
Riot