Gig Review

Shinedown
Soil, Counterpoint
Wolverhampton, Wulfrun Hall
10th November 2009
    
          
Shinedown                 Soil                              Counterpoint      
             
Photo Of Counterpoint © Copyright Robert LawrenceI get into the wulrun hall, all ok tonight, not even any problems getting in. Not long after i get in with my girlfriend, i have to rush into the pit and start shooting with my coat on getting a bit hot in there really.

First band on was Counterpoint a hard rock band from the UK, they open with 'Skin deep', its not a bad song, its heavy on a hard rock sence, decent riff, sounds somewhat like Buckcherry, possible modeled there sound after them, only seem to be doing better in not sounding tired and in the catchyness stakes, they got off to a good start, next up was House of jazz, a lesser song than the opener, still sounding like Buckcherry though, which as the set hoes on there songs could have easily come from the Buckcherry cutting room floor! There songs while heavy, the aren't ear splitting loud, good sound levels. The vocals seem to sound generic hard rock with what sounds like an American accent. They played a fairly new tune tonight called 'Cant breath', it wasn't too bad you can hear it on their myspace page. Overall they put on a good show, but they need to try and develop a more distinct sound!

Photo Of Soil © Copyright Robert LawrenceMain support tonight was soil, a band that for a while seem to have fallen off the map, up until a few years ago im sure they would have been headlining, but as it is there main support! I think the song everyone was waiting for was 'Halo', an song from my and many people i know, youth.They opened with Give it up, a fairly decent opener, but not a real grab your attention kind of tracks, next up was a few older tracks, Unreal and Breaking me down, these songs was split by a new track off the album of the soon to be released Picture Perfect, i enjoyed the new track as it seems a bit more up to date than the older stuff which defiantly sounds its still stuck in the nu-metal era. After a short break the song everyone was waiting for, Halo, its a classic or atleast brings on good feelings from possible better days, still heavy still sounding as great as ever, and the AJ the singer deciding near the end of the track to climb one of the speaker stacks then jump off.

Photo Of Shinedown © Copyright Robert LawrenceHeadliners and band on the rise are shinedown, Hard rock sound with wanna be stadium rock ambitions! The sellout stadium tours may come at somepoint, but a sold out wulfrun hall aint bad going, its been full pretty much all night. They opened with Sound of Madness, which was followed by 'save me' then '.45' , they seem to be sounding like a fair few bands, Nickleback being one of them, its all very cliche stuff, especially in between songs, giving the speeches, that included, we don't wanna be anywhere else but here speech, no doubt played to every crowd, and the women are great speech, to which my girlfriend agreed, but said it was very cliche for sure! There sound is as far from original as it gets really, but they do what they do well, they have some decent riffs, the vocals you've heard a million times, the lyrics are generic really, but they do have a decent quality to them, very CD like, a decent clean sound, which i do enjoy, Visually they put on a good performance. Im Sure they'll get their time in the sun, with any of the songs they played tonight is a possible hit waiting to happen! The crowd was loving it, one thing my girlfriend noticed was that the crowd seemed to be made up of older people than us, i guess this is the sound the older rockers seem to like. Other songs that featured in their set was 'If you only knew', 'Call me' which i was expecting some kind of guitar solo to be broken out ontop of a piano, but luckily it was only a keyboard and no solos turned up either! After the short interval when the inevitable encore is duly about to start, they opened with Second Chance, a song i know, which the crowd gave a massive cheer to and sang along to and which is there most successful single to date, this was then followed by Devour there second most successful single to date, another cheer but less singing this time, but a decent fast paced closer!

Counterpoint – 3/5
Soil – 4/5
Shinedown - 5/5

Review By Robert Lawrence

 Shinedown


Brent Smith
Barry Kerch
Zach Myers
Eric Bass

 Soil


AJ Cavalier (Vocals, Guitar)
Adam Zadel (Lead Guitar)
Tim King (Bass)
Tom Schofield (Drums)

 Counterpoint


Jay Bartlett (Guitar, Vocals)
Greg Badman (Bass, Vocals)
Duke (Drums)
Duncan Spencer (Guitar)

 Band Related Links
Shinedown Myspace
Soil Myspace
Counter Point Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?