Shinedown Satisfies Orlando’s Amway Center With Anthemic Choruses & Energetic Riffing (SHOW REVIEW)

On Saturday night April 15th, fans packed into the Amway Center in Orlando for some of the strongest music that mainstream rock has to offer. It was a night filled with anthemic choruses, sing-along moments, and enough heavy guitar riffs to satisfy rock purists.

From Ashes to New started the evening with some energetic but uninspired nu-metal. Singer Danny Case paced the stage wearing a bulletproof vest, often dueling rap vocalist Matt Brandyberry. The band played songs from each of their three albums as well as two songs from their upcoming album Blackout, “Nightmare” and “Hate Me Too.” 

The Three Days Grace set got off to an inauspicious start. The quartet took the stage to much fanfare, but once they started playing, no one could hear them. No sound came through the PA speakers but the band kept playing, oblivious to the problem. Fans kept yelling “we can’t hear you,” but, of course, the band couldn’t hear that over their own music playing through their in-ear monitors. After a minute or so, the problem was solved and the music blasted through the speakers. It turns out they were playing “So Called Life,” and the crowd quickly got into it.

Choosing from an extensive catalog of hits, Three Days Grace wisely focused on its first two albums. Six of the ten songs came from those releases, including “Animal I Have Become” and  the band’s first hit, “I Hate Everything About You.”

“We’re from Canada, where we just had one of the worst winters ever, so it’s nice to be here in Orlando and finally see the sun,” said singer Matt Walst, who joined the band in 2013 after the departure of founding vocalist Adam Gontier. 

Throughout the set, Walst served as a hype man, regularly encouraging the crowd to dance and mosh. Though Walst’s vocals aren’t as strong or distinctive as Gontier’s, he more than held his own throughout the show.

Highlights included the dynamic “Home” and “Painkiller.” But Three Days Grace saved the best performance for last. They closed the set with a raucous version of “Riot.” Walst left the stage and sang from the first row of the crowd, high-fiving and head-banging with fans while screaming, “Let’s start a riot.”

Florida’s own rock veterans Shinedown then closed the night with a set that treaded an uneasy balance between loud and melodic. Shinedown’s music is best when rocking out, with loud guitars, propulsive rhythms, and Brent Smith singing at a full-gain scream. And that’s when the band seemed the most into the show. 

During the upbeat songs, Smith, guitarist Zach Myers, and bassist Eric Bass rocked out on stage while pyrotechnics exploded around them. The fiery “Enemy” and the infectious riffing of “Devil” showed the band in top form, showcasing Myer’s arena rock riffs, drummer Barry Kerch’s nasty beats, and Smith’s intensity. 

But the band’s biggest hits are the softer ballads, so those crooners, such as “Second Chance” and “I’ll Follow You,” made up half of the show. On some of those ballads, a neon-lit piano descended from the ceiling to be played by Bass.

Midway through the performance, Smith took a moment to recognize the great work done by the American Foundation For Suicide Prevention and announced that $1 from every ticket sold during the tour goes directly to the AFSP. “We’ve been singing about mental health issues for the better part of two decades,” Smith said. He then talked a bit about mental health and encouraged anyone who is struggling to get help. That led into the uplifting anthem, “A Symptom of Being Human.”

Unlike Three Days Grace, which focused on old songs, Shinedown’s set had only one song from the first two albums. Smith took a moment to recognize the importance of Orlando to the band. “The very first time a Shinedown song was spun on the radio was right here in Orlando on WJRR,” Smith said. That song was the band’s first single, “Fly From the Inside,” which did not make an appearance this night. Instead, Shinedown played a soulful sing-along to “45.”

After that song, the band briefly left the stage before returning for a seven-song encore. The band started the extra set with the lively “Devil” but then slowed things down for four straight ballads, including an acoustic cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.” For an acoustic cover of Oasis’s “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” Smith left the stage while Myers and Bass handled the singing. Smith then returned and the band ended the set with two final aggressive songs, the loud/soft anthem “Monsters” and heavy stomping “Cut the Cord.” 

Shinedown Setlist Amway Center, Orlando, FL, USA 2023, The Revolutions Live

 

 

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