Review: Mobile, Theory of a Deadman and Three Days Grace

Boy, I’m behind in a lot of things I want to say, hence, this may become a shorter than usual review.

Vero, Mike and I hit up the Civic Centre this Monday for some concert action. After taking forever to find the way to the floor (jump the boards!), we settled in near the soundbooth because we had a beer in hand so didn’t want to get jostled around too much.

Mobile was awesome. I find they remind me of U2. The lead guitarist’s amp blew up halfway through so there were a few songs without lead while they fixed the situation. I’ve just realized that Mobile is very lead guitar riff heavy in that there was a LOT missing from the song when just the rhythm was being played. Shout out to the band for singing “She Loves You, Yeah Yeah Yeah” at the end. Singer even got into the crowd for the last song.

While waiting in line for a beer, Mike decided to go check for other beer aisles and when I get to the counter he isn’t there and they only serve one beer per person (which is insanely lame). I scour the area for Mike, but alas, he isn’t there, so I have to leave with one beer only. I then find him and we go back into another line. He was chatting with a slew of people he met along the way that he knew. While in line at the next stand, Mike kept having some people tap him on the shoulder to move out of the way because there were a troop of people walking through. Then the guy in front of us says “Hey, it’s Mobile!”. Sure enough, there’s Mobile passing us to go to the merchandise booth and Mike realizes that the band were the ones pushing him out of the way. “Dude, Mobile touched my shoulder!” he cries in schoolgirl glee. I know he won’t admit it here, but I saw him carefully hang up his shirt on his bedroom wall that night.

Theory of a Deadman were in top shape as always. This is the third time we’ve seen them on this tour so they are winding down at this point. Comments on their performance:

• Whoa, what’s up with the faux-hawk and black nail polish Tyler?
• Tyler was messing up two songs MAJORLY. Even the band were looking around saying “What the heck?”
• Props to a little cover of STP’s Sex Type Thing. Matt, I thought of you at that moment.
• I enjoyed their battle of the sexes. Clearly there were more women in the room.

They played a few oldies that I hadn’t heard on the current tour such as Last Song (which, incidentally they said used to be called Theory of a Deadman but then they decided to take that as their band’s name. Cool!)

Then Three Days Grace came on with this giant video screen behind them. I wasn’t overly impressed with the vid screen actually. Very lame. I’ve seen better. But the show they put on was intense. I believe the majority of the crowd was there to see this band (judging from the t-shirts). I enjoy their new album and I enjoyed it in a live element. There were a few songs that didn’t have a great live feel, but I dug on the album, but that’s what you get sometimes. I can see how some songs must have been written for the stage. Adam Gonthier pulled out a solo acoustic cover of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game. He couldn’t really pull off the high notes so he let out the screamo version. His voice was getting pretty shot near the end of the show unfortunately. Can I also mention that they covered Hey Man, Nice Shot by Filter?! That’s amazing! There were cover tunes all over the place tonight! I find it interesting to see old school alternative being covered and wonder if the new age of kids (the teens) even know what’s being played?

Very impressed with the show. Too bad it’s probably the last one we’ll see for awhile in Ottawa. Nothing much else on the radar.

Random meetup afterwards happened when we stumbled upon Krista at McDonalds after the show. She, too was at the show but I never managed to locate her as she was sitting in the stands.