Central Cardiff was chaos on the Saturday that Wales’ rugby team lost to South Africa after looking like the better side for much of the match. However, the disappointment for me was likely to be shortlived with what turned out to be the tenth year since I have seen Shinedown in Cardiff but the first one with them as a headline act. Having seen them rock Download in 2018 and particularly 2021, I was hoping the concert was a going to be everything I had hoped for.
Having checked the support act of Zero 9:36, I was a bit unsure what to expect. The tracks I had listened to gave me the impression that it was going to be a rapper with backing tracks. I was therefore very surprised to see a 4 piece band on the stage which took to the stage at 7pm. Whilst the music was intermittently heavier than I thought it was going to be. Zero 9:36 himself barely stood still on stage throughout the 30 minute set. He tried very hard to wind the crowd up but the basis of rap/rock was probably not the best mix for the crowd, who may have either been there early for Asking Alexandria or very early for Shinedown. Add in the propensity for rappers to litter their lyrical content with excessive amounts of expletives may well have fallen on the sword of a Welsh crowd.
The Yorkshire quintet of Asking Alexandria hit the stage at 8pm sharp to deliver a set much more akin to what the crowd were looking for, the mix of metalcore will always be well received in the Welsh capital,:after all its only 12 miles away from the home of Bullet For My Valentine, probably one of the best exponents of the genre.
Adding into the mix was the addition of pyrotechnics starting during the appropriately titled ‘Into the Fire’ and picking up during alternate tracks throughout the 35 minute set which included ‘Someone Somewhere’. They also made better attempts at crowd involvement especially during ‘Moving On’, when the arena lit up with mobile phones during the slower track. These are a good band and will I am sure go down well on the rest of the tour.
The set crew did an amazing job stripping Asking Alexandria’s huge setup and drum riser off the stage in under 20 minutes so a big heads up for them.
By this time the audience had swollen to its sellout capacity, you could barely put a penny between the audience members in readiness for Shinedown‘s first headline set despite appearing in Cardiff on every tour for the past ten years (that I am aware of and have seen every one since then).
Opening up with a video of the tour preparation and a 584 day count between the last gig prior to Covid and preparation for this tour (I assume), ‘2184’ started the ball rolling until Eric Bass, Barry Kerch and Zachary Myers (complete with bandana covering his mouth) came on the stage before Brent Smith and the band kicked into ‘Saints of Violence’ and ‘Innuendo’, before a huge pyro bang midway which really made yours truly jump in the pit. Great way to start a set. One of my favourite tracks from ‘Attention Attention’ was up next in ‘Devil’ (‘Monsters’ came later on). ‘America Burning’, from latest album ‘Planet Zero’ was next up with even more pyrotechnics. Slowing things down a bit with ‘How Did You Love’ and ’45’ from ‘Leave A Whisper’, which Brent acknowledged as being 20 years old next year.
If you want to wind a crowd up you need a Brent Smith in front. Whilst some of his banter has changed every little, he really knows how to entertain and manage crowd expectations. Watching the video on SetlistFM where he says that whilst most artists want to play their new music on tour, he recognizes that the concert belongs to the crowd rather than the band. A fact that is easily demonstrated from the set list for this tour.
‘Bully’ is always a crowd-pleaser, but then so are the slower tracks they perform such as ‘The Crow And The Butterfly. Despite having just completed five weeks of touring in America, it was unusual to find out that ‘Dysfunctional You’ hadn’t been performed before tonight. Having espoused mental health issues for 20-plus years there are apparently some in the record company who didn’t want it recorded, never mind played on tour. Despite this I think that Smith, Myers, Kerch and Bass are strong enough advocates for mental well-being that they were never going to listen, and good too because it’s a fanatastic song that will touch many audience members especially as a result of the past three years.
To follow that, ‘Enemies’ will always be well received whenever it gets played. With the crowd in a reflective mood after the previous two songs, asking the crowd to light up their mobiles for ‘Daylight’ was always going to result in the crowd joining in with the chorus and the emotion in the room was tangible.
‘Planet Zero’, ‘Cut The Chord’ and ‘Monsters’ really wound the crowd up after the emotional turmoil of ‘Daylight’. What do you do after that? I know, take a break as if it’s the encore period and start off with ‘Second Chance’ and ‘Diamond Eyes’. Unusually, Smith left the stage and Bass and Myers did a rendition of ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ (which apparently wasn’t very well known on the US leg of the tour!). The crowd (or choir if you get more than two Welshmen together in room with beer in them), didn’t disappoint Bass nor Myers. As the crowd was obviously in the mood to sing, Smith came on and whispered into Myers ear: that resulted in an acoustic version of ‘Call Me’ from ‘Sound of Madness’ (apparently another first for Cardiff) before ‘Simple Man’, and they weren’t disappointed with the results, with Myers saying that the Cardiff gig was probably not only the best gig he had ever had the chance to play but was probably one of the best nights of his life… no small comment to make.
There was only one way at to end the gig and that was the absolutely banging version (literally, with all the pyrotechnics) of ‘Sound of Madness’.
Never mind it being the best night of Myers’ life, I’m pretty sure on looking around the room that there were a large number of audience members who probably felt the same. Are Shinedown stadium filers? On the evidence of the last two appearances at Download and this two hours, very definitely, and WHEN it happens I hope yours truly is there. As Brent Smith says at the end of every gig, “it’s never goodbye, its just till next time”. I’m pretty sure that time cannot come soon enough for everyone there tonight. Everyone who saw the rest of the tour is sure to agree with me.