Nickleback Burns It To The Ground In Chicago
As I got closer to Tinley Park’s Credit One Amphitheater for Friday night’s stop on Nickelback’s Get Rollin’ tour, it seemed fitting that the pre-show DJ was blaring Aerosmith and Run DMC’s classic genre-bending hit ‘Walk This Way’. As hip-hop music crossed over into the mainstream during the 80s, that song was a seminal moment, showing that rap music could incorporate any other genre to create something new and unique. As the years went on, the lines between rap and rock continued to blur, with bands like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park taking things to the extreme as the century closed out.
Photos by: Rich Funk
Meanwhile, country music seemed to be going in the other direction. While the early 90’s gave us the reign of Garth Brooks, the end of the 90’s undoubtedly belonged to Shania Twain. Part of the reason behind the success of her 1997 multi platinum album Come On Over was a pretty even split between traditional country songs and more straight-up pop hits. Twain’s next record Up! was one album released in three musical ‘styles’ (one version was country, one was more pop/rock, and the third was mixed with more of a world music sound. Up! was a harbinger of things to come, with country music as a whole doing exactly what rap music already had: absorbing every other type of music in its path. Country and rock now live hand in hand with the lines between them so blurred they might as well not exist. Turn on modern country radio and you’ll hear just as many hip-hop-influenced beats as banjo solos.
After years of these major musical genres creeping into each other, there’s naturally going to be a lot of overlap in fanbases. Nickelback being supported by two country artists (Brantley Gilbert and Josh Ross), something that would have sounded incredibly out of place just a decade or so ago, sold out every single inch and seat of Credit One Amphitheater. With a sellout crowd looking for a good time on one of the last Friday nights of the summer, the stage was set for the Get Rollin’ tour to get everyone attending to get movin’.
Kicking the evening off was Canadian-born Josh Ross. Continuing Shania Twain’s tradition of artists from north of the border showing they can rip things up like the best Southern boys, Ross immediately launched into ‘Tall Boys’, his popular ode to (what else?) ice-cold beers on hot summer nights. Throughout his eight-song set, Ross used his unique combination of bashful charm and evocative lyrics to bring the audience along the emotional ride he had in store. With songs like the heart-wrenching ‘First Taste of Gone’, Ross was able to build a connection with his audience, which he tapped into just a few songs later with his cover of the GooGoo Dolls’ smash hit ‘Iris’. Not wasting a single second in proving himself to be a man of the people, Ross finished off his set with ‘On A Different Night’ and then immediately left the stage for the venue’s main concourse to meet and greet every fan that wanted the opportunity. On a night when it would be hard for anything to top his performance onstage, that act of fan appreciation may have done the trick.
A guitarist with gray dreadlocks long enough to rival Rob Zombie. Another guitarist with the sides of his head shaved. Dual-flame jets shoot out of the top of the drumset onstage. A lead singer in a barely-holding-on tank top with every square inch covered in tattoos. If you didn’t know who Brantley Gilbert was when he and his band took the stage, you wouldn’t be wrong to assume you were about to get caught in a mosh pit. Looking much more like a hardcore band than a country outfit, Brantley Gilbert is the perfect amalgamation of the genre-bending monster that modern country has become. At times as much nu-metal and rap as it is outlaw country music, Gilbert and the rest of his band proved to be the perfect support act for a hard rock outfit like Nickelback.
Having grown up in a town outside Atlanta of 10,000 people, Gilbert knows a thing or two about life in low-population areas, which he channels into his performances of songs like the set opener ‘Kick It In The Sticks’, ‘Small Town Throwdown’, and ‘Son of the Dirty South’. And while there’s no denying Gilbert and the band’s country cred (they throw in a cover of Hank Williams Jr’s ‘A Country Boy Can Survive’), they blurred the lines between country and metal throughout their set, at one point performing a montage of songs by none other than Korn, Godsmack, and Collective Soul. Closing out their set with a rousing rendition of their hit ‘Read Me My Rights’, the full assault of country/rock fusion was on display, with a whopping four guitars crunching out thunderous riffs when Gilbert threw on his own. When it comes to a country band winning over a hard rock crowd, Brantley Gilbert absolutely knocked it out of the park.
Nickelback has always been a hard rock band. But on the band’s 10th album Get Rollin’, they lean more toward heavy metal than they ever have in the past. You can’t blame them for wanting to put the pedal to the metal with their music, with singer/guitarist Chad Kroger almost having to call it quits after needing vocal cord surgery. Kicking off their set with Get Rollin’s opening track ‘San Quentin’ was an inspired choice. With an evening that seemed intent on blurring the lines between country and rock, how better to kick things off than a song written by a convict in San Quentin penitentiary, an obvious nod to country legend Johnny Cash. Following it up with a soaring rendition of ‘Savin’ Me’, Kroger was interrupted from addressing the audience due to not being able to hear himself speak over the roar of the audience that knew they were just strapping in for a long night.
And what a night it was. Tearing through 16 songs spanning their entire discography, Kroger and the rest of the band delivered everything the audience could have hoped for. They played everything, from their greatest hits (‘Photograph’, ‘How You Remind Me’) to the deepest of deep cuts (they pulled ‘Worthy to Say’ out of their back pocket, a non-single from their 1998 debut album ‘The State’). Not satisfied with blurring the lines between musical styles and genres throughout the evening, Nickelback even blurred the lines between performer and audience, pulling a fan onstage to sing lead vocals on ‘Rockstar’. Kroger also invited both Brantley Gilbert and Josh Ross onstage for a cover of Steve Earle’s ‘Copperhead Road’, making the official country/rock crossover official.
As Nickelback closed their set with an incendiary rendition of Burn It to the Ground, the deafening roar of the crowd shook the foundation of Credit One Amphitheatre. On one hand, with the kind of performers Nickelback, Brantley Gilbert, and Josh Ross are, you can imagine that this is the kind of performance they’ve been giving at every stop on the Get Movin’ tour. But on the other hand, it doesn’t seem possible that the kind of energy this show had would ever be able to be replicated again.
