18 February 2013 (gig)
01 March 2013
What’s in a name? Had Tremonti not had the success that he has had with Creed but more pertinently in the UK with Alter Bridge it is highly unlikely that this show, based purely on the music, would have sold out.
On first was Logan who have been slogging around the circuit and releasing albums for a number of years now. This was a new line-up but tonight they looked and sounded uninspired. The trouble is Logan play pretty formulaic hard rock which requires some get up and go on the part of the band otherwise the music can just come across as muzak.
There was no problem with Heaven’s Basement’s enthusiasm, with lead singer Aaron Buchanan bouncing around like Zebedee and the rest of the band pulling all the right shapes. They worked hard, and got a good reception for their speed/power metal sound.
There’s a palpable anticipation about Tremonti, which is hardly surprising as Mark Tremonti’s album All I Was is light years from Alter Bridge. Add to that he’s one of the most talented guitarists operating at the moment, and expectations were high. Opening with a charged version of Leave It Alone, the band proceeded to play every song they’d ever composed, that’s 14 in all, 2 having not made album.
That exposed the band to the album's main shortcoming; after a while it does tend to sound a bit samey. Mark Tremonti has a solid voice, more resonant of Hetfield than on record. They Bay Area mob did come to mind quite often, musically and with the onstage gurning. Not that this troubled the audience that much, who enjoyed it though curiously it wasn’t ‘til quite late in the set that there was much sign of a pit.
Tremonti kept the solos within context and the rest of the band more than supported, with Wolfgang Van Halen taking on bass duties. The two songs not on the album – All That I’ve Got and the encore Gone – would have fitted in snugly. There were highlights; The Things I’ve Seen was genuinely evocative, and proved a crowd favourite, as did the slightly unsettling You Waste Your Time. The set proper ended on a high with Decay.
All said and done the band were fine, if a little wooden at times. They play functional modern metal that many, many bands do too, and just as well as Tremonti. One final thought, Mark Tremonti had a great response when he asked who had the album. Maybe he could have followed it with who had bought the album?
