"Whoa! Heaven let your light shine down."
Ed Roland, lead singer of Collective Soul, couldn’t have said it better. The band played its closing number halfway through Tuesday night’s concert at the Verizon Wireless Theater, and fans eagerly awaited the arrival of Live.
The newly solo Emerson Hart opened the show with a packed half-hour set mixed with new goodies and old favorites.
Hart was received with mediocre enthusiasm from one of the lamest audiences I have ever been a part of. It’s a shame, too: Hart’s confidence amplifies his sense of ease on stage.
The front half of about 300 people acted with some exuberance, bouncing to fresh pop melodies and up-tempo rock. It was clear that it took Hart pulling out "If You Could Only See," a Tonic tune, for people to realize "who the hell he sounds like."
As more people began to file in, I began to realize that this is the first concert at which I have felt out of place.
I anticipated a show with people about eight to 15 years older than me. The audience was mostly made up of this group, but with an influx of people I could call my parents. This perplexing combination and lackluster crowd cheapened the great performances from all three of the bands.
But for the diehard fans, there was no chance of being brought down on this night.
As Collective Soul took the stage, what was once a nervous tension transitioned rapidly into the purest form of positive energy: great music.
There was a wild, blue canvas backdrop, and in the middle was a spiral that would casually interact with the vibrant light show. Imprinted eerily behind the spiral, there was a giant, shadowy tree of life. "Where the River Flows" came railing out of the amplifiers.
Roland was running around the stage, whipping his mic stand around and doing the strangest form of jazz hands that I have ever seen. The band’s attitude on stage was at points more energetic than the crowd’s and was similar to organized recklessness. For the band, it was all about the show and having a great time.
However, when Collective Soul began to break into cuts from the new record, Afterwords, released in August, the motive of this audience was clear: bring on the hits, then hit the road. Songs such as "New Vibration" and "I Don’t Need Anymore Friends" were brushed aside, while "All That I Know" and "Hollywood" began to stir the floor, especially when Roland inserted Angus Young riffs during "Hollywood," teasing the audience with just enough to get them jumping.
"Gel," "December" and "Heavy" received the respect they aptly deserved as people began to move instead of staring blankly with a beer in hand. After they closed their set with "Shine," the raw energy was replaced by an exciting atmosphere of anticipation for Live.
The air was filled with it, and when the lights went out, the crowd finally began to rile up. "All Over You" takes the cake for openers. Ed Kowalczyk took one last drink of wine from his glass near the back of the stage, then, boom.
The crowd progressively showed more energy throughout the night while Live began pouring out gem after gem:
"Pillar of Davidson," "The Beauty of Gray," "The Dolphin’s Cry," "Selling the Drama" – a whole laundry list.
While I can give credit to Kowalczyk for his musical talent, I must say he has the worst case of white-man dancing I have ever seen.
The band came out to the encore of a small drum solo and the sweetest bass solo – and Kowalczyk waltzes out shirtless. I see two eyes, as big as half-dollars, protruding from the face of the young lady standing next to me. I think it was the most excitement I had seen from her all night.
Closing with "Lightning Crashes" finally got some of the electricity the bands were putting out there to connect to the entire audience.
What could have been merely a nice vision of two great bands some missed during the mid-to-late 1990s was instead three different performances from bands that are relevant now.
Hart is a great songwriter with incendiary melodies, Roland is still up their jumping around like a madman, which I love, and Kowalczyk still drives deep messages into the hearts of fans.
The show was a breath of fresh air from old friends. Maybe now the crowd is thinking of the bands in the present instead of lingering on the past.
Ed Kowalczyk said it best:
"Oh now feel it coming back again / Like a rollin’ thunder chasing the wind / Forces pullin’ from the center of the earth again / I can feel it."
