Shinedown
September 2, 2008
The Grand, San Francisco, CA

By Dan Wall

Set List: Devour, Heroes, Cyanide Sweet Tooth Suicide, Cry For Help, If You Only Knew, Left Out, Burning Bright, Sound of Madness, The Crow and the Butterfly, Sin With a Grin, Save Me, 45. Encore: Second Chance, Fly From the Inside. 80 minutes 

After Shinedown’s first two albums failed to set the modern melodic rock world on fire, the group knew had to make some tough decisions if the band was stay together and put out a third disc. 

Those decisions, which included adding three new members and a slight shift in the direction of the songwriting, has helped this Florida-based band put out one of 2008’s great records, The Sound of Madness, and turned the quintet into a power-packed live unit. 

During the band’s recent stop in San Francisco, all of these changes were on display for the first time. Vocalist Brent Smith and drummer Barry Kerch are still on board, and put on the same sort of powerful performances these two guys were known for during the band’s first two tours. New members Nick Perri (guitar, formerly of Silvertide), Zach Myers (guitar) and Eric Bass (no lie-bass) helped push this live performance over the top with a big, beefier guitar sound and great backing vocals. 

Smith is a big, burly guy who can actually sing. He has an over-the-top stage presence, a huge voice and a commanding presence that shows that there is only one leader in this band, and it’s him. He writes all of the songs and seems genuinely proud of what the band has accomplished on its new record. 

Regarding the album, Smith was quoted in an interview with Billboard.com as saying; "It's time to just go over the top, literally go above and beyond what a human being thinks they're capable of recording. We want to do a huge hard rock record that has a lot of crossover potential, but also some of the most insanely intense and heavy material that this band has ever tried - and see if we can pull it off."  

It’s pretty obvious by listening to the record and seeing the band perform the material live that they somehow manged to do it. “Second Chance,” “If You Only Knew” and the epic “The Crow and the Butterfly” are massive, melodic songs that should all be hits. Lead single “Devour,” “Cry For Help,” “Sin With a Grin” and “Cyanide Sweet Tooth Suicide” are all huge rock songs that are heavy and melodic at the same times. The riff for the title track matches “Cry For Help” in its intensity, and the whole album is so good I’ve probably listened to it 50 times in the past three months. 

Onstage, the group is much better than the post-grunge band it appeared to be on its first couple of tours. That doesn’t mean that some of those early songs such as “Burning Bright,” “45,” “Heroes” or “Fly From the Inside” don’t match up to the new stuff, because those songs do. But the band played 8 of the new album’s 11 songs, and could have easily added them all of the songs into the set and been met with the same reaction. 

In San Francisco, that is not the same reaction that this band probably gets elsewhere. Once the rock capitol of the world, I have to admit I’m rather embarrased to be a part of the scene here now. No more than 500 people gathered to see this show (it probably didn’t help that the opening acts are rather unknown and it was on Tuesday); luckily, all of them had heard the new reocrd and loved the band. It’s a much better proposition to see groups like this in the Midwest now, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this band on a festival bill of next year’s CrueFest with such a powerful album to promote.