Sevendust Show

Saturday was the big night! The doors were scheduled to open at 7:00, and since I'd been looking forward to this for a long time, I got downtown nice and early. They were playing at the Showbox, on first and pike, across the street from the market. I decided to park up on 9th because I know there's always free street parking around there, and because there is a police station there and I thought that my car would be safer there than most other places downtown. That meant about a mile walk, but I was nice and early, so I didn't mind.

I got in line at 6:55. At that time the line had extended around the corner and I was right in front of Johnny Rocket's restaurant. This meant that I got to listen to oldies until the line started moving. Unfortunately that didn't happen for another 35 minutes, and at that point there were some very impatient rock fans who were sick of oldies. No violence ensued, but at one point, the entertainment included one disgusting drugged up looking old (I'd guess mid 50's) lady dancing provocatively for the line. After a while, she began begging for cigarettes, and I'm not sure I heard correctly, but I could have sworn she was offering - for the sake of keeping this clean, let's just say 'favors' - in exchange for cigarettes. That's an experience you don't often encounter outside a relatively large city.

Anyway, the line started moving, and around the corner, I found out that 3 Finger Jack was performing. I'm not really into his music, but after half an hour of oldies, it was a nice change of pace. And this was about the time I discovered my big error in judgement. Security was outside saying that any cameras would be confiscated. I had checked the Showbox web site earlier and saw that it said cameras were allowed unless the performers didn't want them. The web site said if they were not allowed, they could be checked at coat check, so I figured I might as well bring my camera. Well, it turns out they were not allowing you to check in cameras which meant a walk back to my car, which was about a mile away. At this point it had started raining, so that made it that much more fun. At 8:05, I finally made it back and got inside. At first I thought that this had worked out quite well because the opening act - Invitro (who were pretty bad) - were almost done. I only had to listen to 2.5 songs before they got off stage.

I wasn't so lucky it turned out. 20 or so minutes of swapping gear later, Diecast took the stage. They were a little better, but still not good. But at least they didn't take themselves too seriously as they had Diecast inflatable women for sale along with the standard t-shirts. And their heavy metal cover of the Kenny Loggins classic Danger Zone was at the very least amusing.

So, 20 or so minutes later, I find out that crap, there is a 3rd opening act. At this point I was not only very impatient, but also pretty annoyed and just about ready to start booing. It didn't help that Red was one of the dumbest looking bunch of dorks I've ever seen (think about your stereotypical alterna-crap/pop punk band). Anyway, they were the best of the bunch, and I would go so far as to say they were tolerable. But they weren't Sevendust, and that's what I wanted. And after hearing the cliche 'what's up Seattle' about 100 times, I'd had enough opening acts. At least I was amused by some of the goofballs in the crowd, particularly the 3 guys who showed up wearing Spartan style helmets made of aluminum foil.

Sevendust finally took the stage, and it was worth the wait. They put on a great show. The sound was very good, and the band played flawlessly. They put on a very high energy show. So high energy in fact that Morgan Rose somehow managed to break his snare drum stand, causing about a 10 minute delay. I don't know how you can hit a drum hard enough to break the stand, but he pulled it off. Lead singer Lajon Whitherspoon was very gracious and not your typical ego maniacal singer. He spent a lot of time talking about how much it meant to the band to have people come out and see them and make them feel welcome. The rest of the band was great too, with a lot of high fiving the front row and throwing picks and drum sticks into the crowd. The crowd was into it as much as any concert I've been to. Lots of jumping around, fists pumping, singing, and shouting. There was some moshing and crowd surfing, but security was pretty tight and put end to all of that pretty quickly.

The show finally got over at about 12:30, and by the time I got back to my car, I had been standing for about 6 hours and my feet hurt like hell. It was a great show though and they played a lot more old stuff than I was expecting. I can't wait for them to come back. This is the closest thing I can find to what it was like there: