I can’t say I am a huge Nickelback fan, but I do know a lot of their songs. This was one of Jess’ bands she was excited to see, and I was happy to go with her especially since I take her to a lot of shows where she doesn’t always like the bands playing or know much of their music. For this show we got seats instead of pit tickets, which is sometimes nice. The day of the show we left town about midafternoon. As always, we have a few errands to run on the way to Denver which includes gas and getting some food. That along with the traffic which was unusually worse than usual. We ended up getting to the venue at 5:45 which was about 15 minutes after they opened doors. After we parked, we walked up to the venue and there was a merch stand outside as well as a guy in the parking lot selling knock off shirts. I bought Jess and I couple of the knocks offs and she bought one from the merch stand. Before heading in we ran our merch back to the car, so we didn’t have to carry it inside. It only took a couple minutes as we were parked close. I think we got back, through security and to our seats by 6:15ish. We were in our seats long enough to get a couple pictures, make a couple social media post and the first band came out right at 6:30.
The first band was a guy named Josh Ross. I had never heard of him or his band before. They had a very strong country music sound. The crowd seemed to really get into his music. He did a cover of the Goo Goo Dolls Iris, which was pretty good. That was the only song I knew from them, but like I said the crowd seemed to really enjoy his set. Though they were good probably not a band I would go see again unless they opened for another band I was seeing. But I also don’t listen to country music. Not that I have anything against it but its just not the style I prefer to listen to.
With that said the next band that played was Brantley Gilbert. He had a sound that was definitely country music. I was a little surprised. I know that Nickelback isn’t a hard rock band but I didn’t think they were that close to country music that they would have 2 country bands open for them. Don’t get me wrong, the guy and his band put on a good set. Lots of energy, very engaging with the crowd. The pit was pretty packed during his set and a lot of the people around us were singing along to his songs. The 2 girls sitting next to us were definitely jamming out, while they were having some beers. At one point they got up to go to the restroom and the girl next to me said she is going to leave her beer in the holder that her and I shared. Which was fine with me since I didn’t have a drink. However, I would never suggest leaving your drinks unattended, as you never know who might put something in it. Not that I would ever put something in someone’s drink you just don’t know people these days. Anyway, I’m getting side tracked. When the girls came back and she went to sit down she knocked her beer over into my seat. I didn’t notice at first so when I sat down it was wet. Just then she looked at me and asked if I know what happened to her beer. I reach in my seat and there it was where she knocked it over to. I stood up and grabbed my coat and headed to the bathroom to try and dry off with paper towels. I was pretty annoyed but when I got back, and she told me she was sorry I told her it was fine. Getting back to the band that was playing, like I said they weren’t my style, but he was entertaining. He even did a little medley starting with Korn’s Blind and played several other metal band songs or clips of them. They also did a full-length cover of Blue On Black by Kenny Wayne Shepard. I thought he did a pretty good version of it. All and all he did a good job of warming up the crowd for Nickelback.
Nickelback hit the stage just after 9 and they came out playing their newest song San Quintin. From that moment on I think most of the people in the seats around us were standing, singing and dancing. In fact, there was one point when they played a cover Copperhead Road and these girls started dancing up and down the stairs. One of them told Jess, they know this dance, in that moment I thought ok whatever that means. Then I looked around and saw several others also doing the same dance. Everyone else was dancing in their spot in front of their seats. The singer was also good about engaging with the crowd. He made fun of the fact most dudes don’t like them. He joked a few times about the type of fans they have. Towards the end of the show, they brought someone out of the crowd to sing Rockstar on stage with them. I was a little surprised that they picked a guy, I thought for sure it was going to be a girl. The guy they picked came on stage and started talking about how Nebraska was better than Colorado. He got booed but the singer was able to get the crowd back into by hyping the Denver crowd up by saying “Tonight it was all about Denver” or something like that. The place went crazy, and they played their song. In total I think I knew about 4 maybe 5 of the 17 songs they played. They also had a lot of pyro technics during their set which was cool. Like I said before, not a band I would have gone to see had it not been for Jess. However, they did put on a great show, and Jess and I had fun!
Be sure to check out my Dan’s 420 Chronicles YouTube channel!
Follow me on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dans420chronicles
Twitter: @dan_chronicles
Instagram: Dan’s 420 Chronicles
