The PORTAL MAGAZINE

Collective Soul concert review, October 23/09
by Donna Mair

Ed Roland singer, Joel Koshe guitar

Collective Soul comes to town about once or twice a year and this time they played Kamloops and Vancouver in back to back shows. As Kamloops is only a mere 4 hrs away, I decided to go to both shows! The show in Kamloops was incredible, amazing, intense – all the adjectives that one can possibly think of to describe something that was enjoyable beyond belief – and as I drove back to ‘The Coast’ the next day I wondered how on earth Collective Soul would ever top what I had seen the night before? I’m still wondering how they did it, but they did!

The show was at a downtown club with a bouncing dance floor – and unless you get there early, the lineup to get in the door snakes down the block and around the corner, past the two dollar pizza place, and almost around the next corner – it’s insane! (and the mark of a good band) Knowing this, I arrived in good time, just managed to miss a thundershower and wind storm, and soon we were being let in the front doors to snag our favored spots along the rail at the front of  the stage.

We waited about an hour between being let in and having opening band, Crash Parallel, start the show. They’re a quintet from Ontario, that includes a keyboard player, bass, guitar, drums, and singer/front man, and they’re quite good. They performed energetically, got the audience fired up from the second song in (the opening song was too slow, I thought, as an opener), and there were people in the audience around me obviously familiar with this band’s music, as they were singing along with the band.

Crash Parallel performed about a 30-40 minute setlist, informed us that they only had two songs left, thanked Collective Soul for having them on the band’s Canadian leg of their tour, and finished out their performance to great reaction from the crowd.

Will Turpin bass, Dean Roland rhythm guitar

A short wait (that seemed like forever!) and we watched the road crew break down the gear and then quickly check Collective Soul’s gear (all of which looked brand spanking new from the last few years I’ve seen them live). The crew taped down the ubiquiteous set lists, strategically placed cups of beer and bottles of water at each band member’s ’station’ and laid down a carpet right in front of singer Ed Roland’s microphone (I’ve only ever seen carpet laid down for a drummer). A few last minute fine tuning, and suddenly the song track stopped, the lights went out and so it started!

As the opening bars of  ‘Welcome All Again‘ hummed through the speakers, the crowd reaction was deafening, the stage lights kicked in and the band was suddenly on stage in a blaze of light and energy. Although the band’s new Self Titled album (nicknamed Rabbit) is a relatively new release (August 20th) much of the audience is already familiar enough with the new material to sing along right from the get-go. Welcome was not one of my favorite songs from this album, but I have to admit, it’s a fantastic song to start the show with!

Straight from ‘Welcome’ into ‘Heavy’ amid hoots and hollers from the crowd, no time to breath and bang, we’re in to ‘Listen’. Three energetic songs in a row with no dilllydallying and it has the anticipated effect on the crowd – we all go nuts, and we’re singing along to the ‘Hey’ part of ‘Listen’ giving back our energy to the band. It works – they kick it up a notch, and swing into ‘Tremble for my Beloved‘ (younger people recognize this from the Twilight soundtrack) and then into ‘Why Pt. 2′. After five straight songs of intense energy there is respite for both band and audience, as they tone it down with ‘Needs’. I’m watching rhythm guitarist Dean Roland at this point and he’s playing with eyes closed, feeling the depth of what he calls one of his favorite Collective Soul songs – it’s a sad, poignant song, but as all Collective Soul songs, it ends with hope and hopefulness and as the song ends he comes out of the intensity that it brings, and and smiles – knowing what is next on the setlist.

drummer Cheney Brannon

‘Fuzzy!’ This song starts out with whistling (some of which was lost in the crowd noise), and speaks about waking up with a fuzzy head and ‘I swear I’ll never taste it again – not tonight, no not tonight’ Its a fun song, a new song and the audience is appreciating the playfulness of it, especially the ending which includes a wicked drum solo by Cheney Brannon (nickname – Animal ie Seasame Street drummer) and Ed holding his mic stand over the plexi so we can hear Cheney yell ‘yeah!’ at the end as he does on the album track.

‘She Does’ is next and Ed speaks to the audience about it before performing it, but has sound issues with his mic – to the point people start to tell him they can’t hear him.  In the past, I’ve seen Roland get angry about sound issues while trying to deal with it and keep the show going, this time that didn’t happen.. instead he switched gears and did a softer song, She Said, so that he could be heard over the other guitars while the crew sorted out the sound issues. For me, it was a nice touch for two reasons – the obvious professionalism of just rolling with the punches, and She Said is one of my favorite Collective Soul songs but as an older song I never expected to hear it performed live.

Sound issues dealt with, it’s right back into the rockin tunes; December, Shine (a crowd favorite where we get to do an acapella sing for the band while they listen), and Hollywood.  The World I Know brings out a feeling of wanting to light lighters (or cell phones) and then Ed stops to introduce the band; Joel Kosche on guitar, Cheney Brannon on drums, Will Turpin on bass, and Dean Roland on rhythm guitar (but as he did last night, he didn’t introduce himself!)  Instead of right into next song, Ed banters with Joel asking him ‘what you got, show me what you got’, and Joel strums a few chords of an ACDC song – the crowd goes nuts – Joel is visibly embarrassed but smiling, and stops. Intrigued, Ed runs with it – challenges him to play some Queen and Joel obliges, then stops again… and again Ed challenges him to keep going, as do we! So he does, and Cheney jumps in with drums, Will with bass and before we know what’s happening, Ed’s  singing the opening lines to Back in Black in falsetto, then stops, laughing and apologizing that its much to high for him and he’s just messing with us. We don’t mind! Back to the show and Ed finally lets Joel start – and Joel sings the one he wrote for their last album – ‘I Don’t Need Anymore Friends’.  Gel is next (my least favorite Collective Soul song) and then Better Now with audience participation – only with a twist! As we sing ‘the world’s done shaking me‘ , Ed walks over to Joel’s corner and starts to scat sing – then dares Joel to play what he just sang… Joel does. Audience still sings not sure what’s happening, and Ed takes a few steps backwards, dares Joel to follow him, scat sings again more complicated, Joel duplicates it. This goes on as Ed works his way from one end of the stage to the other side, checks the length of Joel’s guitar cord, and draws a final ‘line in the sand’ on his carpet with his toe, and Joel can’t follow him any further – runs out of cord! They finish off Better Now amid thunderous clapping and cheers and each band member puts down his instrument, waves at the crowd and walks off stage.

But its not over till its over and the band comes back for an encore; Dig, Staring Down on keyboards (flawless wheeling in of said keyboard without band losing a moment of time to wait for it – impressed!), ‘Where the River Flows‘ and they end with ‘Run‘ – they always do.  But tonight was different. Instead of each man leaving separately and one at a time, they all stood together soaking in the appreciation, and smiling and making eye contact with various people in the audience, leaning over to slap hands with some, and tossing drumsticks and guitar picks out to lucky recipients… before very (very) reluctantly leaving the stage to end the show.

As I said, I was at both shows, and they did top themselves and I still don’t know how!

video courtesy of Amazing nightMair Productions

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