I have seen Three Days Grace 1 other time live when they opened for Disturbed. That was the first time seeing them live, that was also the first time I went to a concert with Jess. Needless to say when they announced they were coming in concert to Denver I knew I wanted to go and I knew that Jess would want to go since they are her second all time favorite band. The day the tickets went on sale I bought ours. However the week before the concert, the local radio station was giving away free VIP tickets to the show. When I bought our tickets I didn’t see that as an option so when I heard we could try to win them I told Jess and we tried everyday. That Thursday the DJ told listeners to call in and give him a name of a Three Days Grace song that started with R. Jess and I immediately started calling and within a minute of trying both of our phones were ringing and then all the sudden the Dj answered her call. He asked her to name a song and she said Riot. She was so quick with her answer the DJ decided to mess with her and told her to name another song that started with R. We both looked at each other and drew a blank. The DJ finally told her what about Right Left Wrong? He was just messing with her as I said and he gave her the tickets. She was so excited and I was happy for her since this is a top band for her. Since we had extra tickets we offered them to a few people and our friends Buzz and Carrie decided to take them. We also decided to just car pool up to the show to save on gas.
The day of the show we headed up around 1pm to avoid most of the traffic and to get there early enough to get a good spot in line. As soon as we picked up our friends in Fountain which is about 25 mins north of Pueblo, it started raining and traffic got really bad. The traffic was not only from the rain but the cops were having a parade going down the south bound lanes on I-25. They were honoring a cop who had been shot in the line of duty. They had cop cars from every county in Colorado. There were over a couple hundred of cars in total all driving South bound. People were pulled over along the freeway to watch and also honor which caused traffic to really back up even going North bound. Once the traffic cleared the rain began to come down hard and that also slowed us down as we weren’t able to drive the normal speed limit. After we got to Denver we quickly stopped for a bite to eat then headed to the venue. We dropped Buzz off so he could go get in line while we ran up the street to the liquor store. We then parked and made our way to the venue to also get our tickets and get in line. We were supposed to get our tickets at the box office along with our VIP passes by 4:15 then be checked into the VIP section by 4:45. When we got there the box office said they still didn’t have the VIP tickets they were waiting on them. We waited but they never got them. We had to explain to the VIP coordinator that we were still waiting on our tickets. They ended up running around and finally brought us our tickets and we lined up for the VIP experience. The VIP experience included a picture with the band, a Q&A session, a signed poster and a VIP lanyard. The Q&A was cool all the band members seemed pretty chill and really tried to connect with the fans. After the Q&A we were given the option to find our spots on the rail or go buy merch or just roam around. Jess and I headed straight to the front to get the spot she wanted which was just right off the center. Once we had our spots Jess headed out to buy some merch while I held our spots. I had a little help from another guy who was in the VIP meet and greet with us. We had met him a few other times as other shows. We also tried to hold some space so once Buzz and Carrie got in they could also get on the rail with us. While I was standing there waiting the security guy that I had made friends with at Mudvayne saw me and walked up and handed me a guitar pick. He said he had gotten from a guitarist from a band (Fame Fire) the other night and he saved it for me. That was pretty cool that he did that and even remembered me. Shortly after that Jess got back with our merch and Buzz and Carrie joined us on the rail.
The first band to play was Zero 936. Jess and I saw them live once at Rockville. Though I wasn’t familiar with their music then nor this time, I thought they did a good job of hyping up the crowd. The singer engaged with the crowd and their music was up beat. The rest of the crowd seemed to like them as I noticed a lot of people dancing and singing along. I managed to get the bassist to hand me a pick at the end of their set and I also managed to get their set list.
Wage War was the next band to play. I know I have heard of them and I may have even seen them live before but I honestly don’t remember. Either way I was not familiar with their songs either. They were more up beat and harder than Zero 936 and they really had the place rocking. More people were packed in for their set and people were starting to mosh during their set. They might have moshed during the first bands set but I didn’t notice it. I think that Wage War was definitely the better of the two band but we were all excited to see Three Days Grace.
When Three Days Grace come out they opened with one of their new songs “So Called Life” and they place went crazy. I personally don’t think the crowd was as wild as it was for Mudvayne but I was told by some other people they thought the pit was crazier. I just know that on the rail we didn’t have people pushing on us as hard or throughout their set like they did for Mudvyane. It was actually quite enjoyable to not have to worry about so many crowd surfers or people pushing. I don’t usually mind the pushing but as I said in my Mudvayne review it was a bit much that night. Three Days Grace played hit after hit. I think they only played 2 songs that I didn’t know which I think were some of their new songs off the Explosion album. Either way they put on a great set. Lots of energy and engaging with the crowd. They even had 2 people from the crowd come up on stage and sing with them for one of their songs. They threw out a lot of guitar picks which I managed to get a couple of them. I almost got the set list but the guy who was helping hold our spots got it. I did manage to get one of the band towel they had on stage. Which didn’t have any logos on it but they were the towels they were using to dry themselves on. That along with the picks went to Jess since they are her or one of her favorite bands. I also managed to get a 420 clip during their song “Home” where he says “by the time you are home I am already stoned”, which was cool. All and all I think we both had a great time. I think our friends Buzz and Carrie had a good time. It was nice to see a band where I knew almost every song they played and of course Jess knew them all. Given the chance I would certainly see them live again!
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