The other night, for a special event, Larry and I went out to see a concert. As you might guess from the title of this blog, it featured four bands: Skillet, Seether, Breaking Benjamin, and Three Days Grace. All in all it was a good experience, and not just because it was my first concert (of this variety). The bands did well and I got to spend some time floating around Merriweather Post Pavillion with Larry (and his new admirer, a very pushy hornet that wanted him something fierce).

We started out being at the concert about an hour and a half before the show, due to the exceedingly long line which caused us to decide to park and go ahead in, lest we wind up sitting somewhere in Virginia to watch the show. We wound up getting pretty decent seats, even though they were lawn, but that would change later thanks to the helping hand of a relative of a friend of Larry's.

Finally after some beer (for us) and a hot dog (for Larry), the lead-in band started up. Their name was Skillet, and despite the fact that I don't think a lot of people knew who they were (the lead singer himself said so), they did pretty well. Larry found out later they do Christian Rock and found that to be a turn-off, but I had already been turned off by their lyricist. I didn't know exactly what they were saying but it certainly was far from poetic at any rate. The person who wrote the songs was pretty spot on, but they never really strayed too far from the basic rock formula: a decent chord progression and a rocking drum riff. A few times they got my hopes up with an awesome string intro keyed by the synth/guitar player, but they were soon dashed as the intro material was never touched again. Ultimately, I'll probably perk my ears up if I ever hear them again but I doubt I'll buy their CD.

Seether was next up, and unfortunately we were otherwise occupied during their opening salvo, so I can't talk too much about their initial stage presence. However, a big let-down was how the singer barely mentioned (if at all, I can't even remember) the other bands playing that night, or moved from a single spot. He spent most of his interlude time talking about how much merch people could buy (but only after they stopped listening to their awesome performance). Finally they picked up their energy level, although it was only on the last song. My final estimation is that Seether is terrible live.

However, the concert was soon to be redeemed, for Breaking Benjamin would soon take the stage.

While Seether was beginning, we were otherwise occupied, as I had said. A relative of a friend of Larry's worked at the concert venue, and tossed us some pretty sweet armbands that got us down onto the main floor, and also the VIP section (which was mostly cool cause there were less people there, mostly, meaning no long lines to get overpriced food or into a questionably-sanitized bathroom). Unfortunately, I thought both things were a bust because Seether was something I could have appreciated watching from a TV back on my couch at home, and being on the floor essentially amounted to feeling my chest almost explode because they amped up the mic too high on the bass drum, and the VIP section we just walked through. However, in between Seether and Breaking Benjamin we got a nice respite from the crazy people while Larry got some grub at the stand in the VIP section; and then, we were able to see the best show of the night right up close and personal.

Let me first say that Breaking Benjamin has never been my favorite band. I will readily admit that a lot of their songs (I'm looking at you, Diary of Jane), don't lyrically make any sense. I watched the video for Diary of Jane, and if anything else that made the song make even less sense. I like a few of their songs, but that's about as far as it's gone for me: kind of liking some stuff. Well, my opinion of the band was irrevocably changed once they took the stage.

The energy level of the band was off the charts. While the first two bands spoke a lot in between songs, making me think this was par for the course, Breaking Benjamin actually transitioned from one to the next. The people who could move (i.e., everyone but the drummer) did move, all around the stage. This made it so that we could actually see the guys sometimes, as we always wound up behind some 6.5-foot-tall person (and Larry and I are both short). And even without the movement they still were clearly enjoying playing their songs a whole hell of a lot more than everyone else that night: that is to say, they were playing music like musicians.

The one part about their segment that I did not like, was the the way they had poorly mic'd the singer. All of their tech was spot-on but for that: the lighting show fit the music perfectly, and everything else was well-balanced (the drum set did not make me feel like I had a pulmonary embolism, which is always nice). But I just couldn't hear the singer very well unless he was speaking to the audience between songs. Even that, though, was awesome: this guy was a real showman (and not in a bad way).

The band had an opportunity to play tons of songs and by the time they were off I thought they'd been playing for a couple of hours, but it was only actually about 45 minutes or so. I imagine this was due to the fact that they didn't screw around and actually spent a lot of their time actually playing songs, instead of selling their merchandise. In fact, there was only once when he mentioned something similar to a sales pitch, and even then it was couched in a thankful speech about those who had been there from the beginning for the band. While the other bands talked about themselves, Breaking Benjamin merely got the audience worked up and ready for the last band of the night. Skillet I can forgive that failing (and even theirs was much less severe than Seether's) because they're not well-known yet and need to promote themselves, but Seether? Come on.

While the band took a break about 3/4 of the way through the show, the lead singer walked around the stage and actually communicated with the audience: he even gave out free water and chucked it into the stands (note: he has a really good arm). But then he climbed back up on stage and started back into more music and finished out the show with the same energy he started it with. I'm guessing his talking was just killing time to recover, I know personally that maintaining that musical energy is hard for that long; but, even though it was filler, it was still good. He actually sounded grateful to everyone for coming to see them, as though they were just a local band with 95% personal friends in the audience. Overall, if there was one band during that concert that I would definitely see again, it'd be Breaking Benjamin.

The rest of the concert, i.e., Three Days Grace, had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, they hit a little shy of the mark. I can't completely blame them, by the time they took the stage everyone was pretty much at that stage where they were just either drunk, tired, or both, and couldn't really respond that well to anything. Had the roadies managed to clear the stage in anything under 20 minutes, where there could still be a hope of the energy high from the previous band left over, that probably would have helped as well. While Three Days Grace seemed to have naturally higher-energy songs (they didn't have to put nearly as much into them to get them going twice as hard), they didn't help them along at all. Also, people seemed to want to take the opportunity to mosh really hard on all their songs; this included, inexplicably, Not Too Late. After Riot, I was pretty much done as the moshing had gone almost completely out of control, which I imagine was the point. Unfortunately my opinion of all of these events was also negative due to the extremely drunk Hispanic guy next to me rubbing against me the entire time while trying (strangely successfully) to schmooze three equally drunk chicks. Had the band given it their all, I might have felt better about the whole experience, but the only thought I kept having the whole time was "get me the hell out of here before some fat, ugly drunkard knocks my head off."

Ultimately, the night was a good one. Larry's company made the not-so-good parts of the night enjoyable, and Breaking Benjamin threw me for a royal loop. I'm glad I went, and am looking forward to the next "new thing" with him.