Collective Soul..concert review... Collective Soul-Porter Hall March 23, 1999 Here's my much anticipated review of Collective Soul as seen in the month of March. It's June now, so I hope the thoughts of that night still remain fresh. I went with Larisa to Porter Hall which was a pain to find. The funniest thing was the fact that there is a massive rock concert going on next to the Muslim prayer room. I laughed when I saw that. We were in line and talking to some lady who went on and on AND ON about how much she loved Collective Soul and how hard it was to get tickets. Needless to say, we ventured AWAY from here at the first chance we had. Porter Hall isn't the biggest place to have a rock concert. For those of you from Kapuskasing, think of the auditorium floor in KDHS and that is how big it is. There were over 600 fans…very intimate. Joydrop opened who were pretty decent. They have a hit single called Spiders which I recognized. I was very impressed by them. Collective Soul came on out with a very nice light show and a song which sounded like John Lennon came over the intercom. I heard the familiar start of the Dosage CD which is the intro to… Tremble For My Beloved-This is my favourite song off the Dosage album. Ed Roland came out and I swear John Lennon took the stage before us. I suppose that was the reason for the John Lennon song opening the band. Ross Childress took the stage to the left where he could have enough room for his wicked solos. Smashing Young Man-Awesome! Starting off with some great songs from the self-titled album is a great way to get the fans going since I think that was their most rocking album to date, although Dosage is by far a great album. They slowed it down during the middle with Ed just singing. December-This is the part where Larisa decided the back part of the crowd was not where I was in my essence, so we proceeded to the middle where the action was. Funny, usually the front is the most hectic. Great view at this point. The crowd was feeding off the energy from the song. Such a beautiful song. Strobe lights graced us at one point with the beat of the song. Lovely. At this point I really can't remember the order of songs so I'll try my best…. Generate-AWESOME song off of Dosage. The drums went with the lights which is a great effect. This song goes down in the books as having a great solo. There were even two guys bowing to Ross as he achieved higher planes with his solos. Great song. Run-Electric version. Everyone knew this song since it was one of the new singles. I remember listening to a guy next to me rhyming off the chords as they played them. I thought that was pretty funny since I actually knew what he was talking about. Not a rocking song but one that is just mellow. Precious Declaration-This was the first Disciplined Breakdown song, which in turn through everyone into a frenzy. At this point I have to say that Larisa and I are amongst goliaths who looked like they were from a football team. Not a great situation to be in, but we held it out. Larisa can rock like no one else. Listen-another great song. Can't remember too much about it. Blame-A nice little intro for this song with a lone blue light on Ed. I love the way they enhance the songs with little interludes all over the place Simple-A long interlude here…a good five minutes. I love these songs from the second album. They all are rocking. I swear my vocabulary must be enhanced while writing these reports…rocking, awesome…. Gel-Another good one. No More, No Less-Honestly, I don't remember this one being played but Larisa remembered it. I think this was when I was absorbed on the incredible stage. I Will Follow-Ok, I'm not the biggest U2 fan, but I gotta give these guys credit where credit is due. This was the biggest song of the night as all the crowd got into it. There were rumours of the band playing Crazy Train again this year, as they did last year at Edgefest….there was even a fan with a sign saying 'Crazy Train' on it. But this year they decided to throw some U2 into the mix which turned the crowd wild. I remember orange lights on the crowd. Where the River Flows-Can't remember this one. World I Know-Mellowed everyone out. A beautiful song. Breathe(?)- I'm not sure if this was Breathe or not. All I remember is that is was from the first album. ENCORE. Heavy-The first single for the Dosage album actually wasn't that rocking as one might think it is off the album. It was great, but didn't throw the crowd into a state of frenzy. Maybe it was because it was after the U2 song. Shine-This was Larisa's favourite song of the night. Nothing can beat this song's solo. There's just so much emotion to it, so much feeling. Words can't describe this song. Last Thoughts: It's been awhile since I've written a review for a concert. I guess it's shorter than my other ones which is joyous to all of you guys. But this lets me remember great things of the night. We enjoyed ourselves greatly and we've recently purchased tickets to Collective Soul and The Cranberries in August. I can't wait.
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