Ok, so maybe you had to be there to understand the title, but I’ll explain later, first we need to speak of Seether. The stage was set for a good night of rock by the South African band Seether, both Sick Puppies and Safety Suit sounded good to open, so what else should you expect? Seether is going to sound good tonight on a hot Friday night in Ft. Wayne, right? Why am I asking questions and not answering more of them?
Well, Seether’s set was good. Seether was solid. The sound was good. The mood of the band was good even if the songs hearken back to a decade and a half ago when everything thing OK wasn’t OK. The crowd got it, I got it the band got it, but what I got was something a little less than I expected. It was good, but not totally compelling. Am I being harsh? No, just pointing out that after watching about 15 shows now that maybe Seether needed to do more. Let me explain...
When your most memorable moment of the night feels like a good (not great) version of Stone Temple Pilots’ “Creep”, you have to feel like something might be missing. Was the crowd not getting it? No, the crowd seemed into the band and not just on “Creep” or “Remedy”. Was the atmosphere in Piere’s not conducive to a good or great night for Seether? No. The crowd was swaying with the music, jamming with the band, working with the band, enjoying the band. Was there a sound issue? No. The vocal, the bass, the guitar and drums all sounded well balanced and good. So what was missing?
OK, here is what I am thinking; A totally different band, with a different sound was the last band I saw at Piere’s, Nonpoint. Nonpoint was all the same as Seether in that there wasn’t anything missing in the sound, the voices, the crowd, but where as Seether probably is greatly into the trudging sound of grunge mixed with a little pop sincerity, Nonpoint a few weeks back has that feel of Rage Against the Machine, minus all the politics. It worked a few weeks back and as hard as I have tried not to compare one show versus another, this time I feel it necessary, because in Northern Indiana, we don’t always get so many shows as we have in the past few months, so when you see a band, you want them to bring it. Seether felt more like they were mailing it in. Nonpoint a few weeks back didn’t, it was as if Ft. Wayne, IN was home, not Ft. Lauderdale, FL. That means something to a rock fan. Everywhere is home.
“Gasoline” a very solid rock song on CD, sounded muted to me. It wasn’t that it sounded bad, it just didn’t sound up to the par that we music fans in Ft. Wayne are getting used to. Sounds homer-ish, but I drive down from Mishawaka, so I am more like a second-cousin to the area, so I am definitely not a homer. The sounds emanating from the stage weren’t bad at all, just sort of, blah. I probably won’t be this hard on a band again, but I had some pretty modest expectations of what I thought I’d see from Seether, but what I got was a stage show with Christmas lights and the occasional strobe light. This isn’t what I expected, nor should I. (Or anyone else, the economy isn’t that bad!)
Overall, Seether would still get a passing grade when it comes to the sound, the delivery of the music, but it just didn’t do more for me than the CD’s or MP3’s. I expected more and maybe I need to chill out my thoughts going in, but that’s a bit hard to do after seeing all the shows that I’ve seen recently.
Now, on to the funny part. The perfectly nice band called Safety Suit were in the midst of a nice 30 minute set. The vocals were buried for the first couple songs (or maybe the vocalist wasn’t warm until song 3 or 4), but the songs still sounded good. The song “Annie” was really damn strong, the kind of song that could have been last and you wouldn’t have hurt my feelings. Very pop/rock feel, but not to sugary and not overly phony either. Anyway, Doug Brown, singer for the band decided to talk to the crowd, let us know thanks for showing up and all that. (You’ve heard it before, you’ll hear it at your next show...) Well, ole Doug Brown decided to thank us, we the fans of...Toledo. Not once. Not twice...hell, after the third time and the crowd booing Mr. Brown for his airhead mistake, the bassist came up to Doug to let him know that they were in Ft. Wayne. “Want to get away?”
Anyway, after spitting out my beverage from that flurry of mistakes, I had to laugh audibly with the other fans around me. The guy seemed quite contrite and really saddened by his mistake, but my guess is that this will live in the Safety Suit lore as that time when...
They were good anyway, as was Sick Puppies, but as far as a night goes, the most entertaining moment was the one where the crowd wanted to bum rush the stage due to an error. My next show in Ft. Wayne will be better...Rob Thompson