Stimulate this Tour, Good but...

We went to the Stimulate This Tour at MetraPark last night. The tour features bands Staind, Shinedown, Chevelle, and Halestorm. And to our surprise Lo Pro opened up the show early.

Because Lo Pro played before the official showtime, they had a small crowd but they definitely played as if they were playing to thousands. Halestorm and Chevelle were high energy and interacted with the crowd. And Shinedown stole the show. They had the entire room on their feet rocking out to every song. They said, "Are you ready for Staind?" and the crowd responded in cheers of "YEAH!"

So then Staind comes out, begins with a pretty good hard rock song and next they go into one of their ballads. Lead Singer, Aaron Lewis sounded great but he either stood at his mic playing guitar and singing or slowly paced the stage. My younger brother put it best when he said "this has turned into a cuddling concert" and sure enough the couples around us were snuggling during the ballads and the rest of the crowd was just somber.

So the crowd that came to rock quickly began leaving. You could see 100s of people at a time filtering out of the arena. So then, Staind starts leaving really big spaces between songs. Eventually, Aaron Lewis asks how we're all doing and then he says "I apologize" and walks off. After a few seconds he comes back and says "Alright, Billings, I'm going to give you all I've got for one more song". Plays and is gone. The show was over at 10:30 or so and I would guess they were supposed to play until 11pm.

To the crowd, I think it felt like Staind just really didn't care to play for us. Billings has great rock fans and whatever the band gives, the crowd gives back. So a somber lead singer, gets a somber crowd. I think something must have been wrong. Maybe Aaron wasn't feeling his best... I don't really know for sure. But I'm certain that last night's show was not the norm for a Staind concert.

Regardless, the other acts definitely made up for it. I think I could see Shinedown over and over and not get bored with them.