You can’t feel my torment, driving me insane.
Staind throws a 9/11 shindig with Breaking Benjamin and Daughtry at Pine Knob. But it’s mostly me rambling about the one year anniversary of starting this thing.
Never Forget.
Never Forget.
It Never gets old. Twice a day almost every day for the past 23 years I shout out Never Forget when the clock hits 9:11. I do it as a joke and it cracks me up every time.
Last 9/11 I signed up on Substack, for years I’ve told myself I was going to take all these stories I’ve accumulated over the years and write a memoir of sorts. When I was going to school, it was for Journalism. One of the many things in my life that I started and never finished. Justifying my inaction because “no one reads” “there’s no money in writing” so I cruised around for years chasing the dragon, spending my time working life consuming hours to get enough money to stay intoxicated and see as many shows as possible under the guise of doing research and obtaining as many stories as possible and never actually writing about them.
When I found out about Substack it seemed like the perfect way to start writing again. Most people don’t read, and there’s no money in writing. Perfect, I’ll start here. With little to no expectations. I had a goal to create content weekly, it hasn’t been a weekly thing, but in the 52 weeks I’ve been here, I’m just a few shy of 52 posts. Close enough to be proud of what I set out to do, and to keep me motivated to continue to consistently improve on my content.
There are 41 subscribers, and a handful are people I’ve never met. That warms me, I would like to have a bigger audience, but my posts have received many more than 41 views. People may not be subscribing, but people are reading them. Thank you. If you are one of those viewers, it means so much to me that anyone would take time out of their lives to read my words. I’m horrible at proof reading, rushing to publish, I am aware that there are loads of typos, and autocorrects that give the wrong words. It’s something I plan on correcting this next fiscal year.
That being said, my goal is to have a book of sorts, full of my thoughts on music and stories of mine ready to publish within the year. I’ve got a solid plan on what exactly I want to do with it. If it all goes according to my plan there should be more than one volume. But there’s plenty of work I need to get done first to make this goal a reality. So more on that as it starts to come to fruition.
The ultimate goal is to be able to get into shows for free, there’s a lot of stuff I miss out on due to fiscal responsibility. I’m going to work on changing that as well. So I can keep content chugging along.
Local bands are also going to become a bigger part of this as well. I find much more enjoyment discovering the great music being made around the city, and watching live music in the ultra intimate settings. So look forward to discovering new music along with me this coming year.
Once again, thanks for subscribing, thanks for just popping in just read here and there. Y’all are the best.
This concludes the state of the union portion of the article.
Staind was a big one for me in high school, I’ve always thought Break the Cycle was the Nevermind of the 2000’s. Although Hybrid Theory may actually hold that title. Regardless, I fucking loved that record. The emotions, the anger, the remorse, the struggles that were so well presented on the album really resonated with me as an angsty adolescent. 25 years of Staind being around and they always eluded me live. I had a line on tickets to see them with Godsmack last year, but missed the show, as I had been sitting my own form of Shiva for my dear buddy who had passed away that week.
For all the bad press Aaron Lewis gets for his personal politics and drunken ill advised rants, the guy can still fucking sing. Fortunately he focused on delivering a quality performance and left any of that nonsensical bullshit on the bus. I was excited to finally see them live.
Having no clue who the first act was, my buddy and I opted to enjoy a few parking lot beers when we arrived. A few things I’ve touched on before, I hate amphitheater shows, and Pine Knob is the worst. I have so many fond memories of going to the storied venue, but honestly the more and more I go out there, the more I’m ready to retire. It’s not usually anyone I haven’t seen at least once before, and it’s a giant ordeal that anymore I feel like I’d just rather not. Bar, Club and theater shows are far superior and always a million more times enjoyable.
We got inside in time to hear Daughtry roll onto a Journey cover. I cannot tell you one single Daughtry track, American Idol Alt Rock was something I’ve never once wanted to be subjected to. I paid little to no attention to the set, instead beginning to write out my State of the union in my head. They sounded like a professional third tier billing act for a tour like this. I can’t complain about the quality of the performance. It’s exactly what you would expect a generic hard rock band to sound like. Not great, not bad, just a decent starter to kick off a lineup like this. The crowd was super into it, so there’s that.
Breaking Benjamin was the direct support. I’m not a big fan, I enjoyed the first two albums when they came out, and I saw them a few times at Harpo’s twenty years ago. Back when it mattered. I’ve seen them more times over the years at Pine Knob as well, but they were one of the bigger bands in that whole alt metal scene that I couldn’t fully get on board with. They too are also decent live and I can’t complain about the quality. They bring a big show that commands the crowd to engage. But they just aren’t my cup of tea, especially as I get older. I recognized a handful of tracks, but the majority of the set was foreign to me. The bright side of being ignorant to the majority of the songs is they at least sound good, so far background noise it’s not an awful time. I can’t tell you that you gotta see them live, because you could go your whole life without seeing them with no negative consequences. But if you do go see them, you won’t be mad or feel like you got ripped off. There are better ways to spend your time and money though.
It was finally time for Staind. Now, I fell off Staind not too much longer after Break the Cycle, 14 shades of Gray I didn’t love and Chapter V didn’t really grab me. A few songs from each album caught my attention but I had begun really expanding my musical horizons and Staind was beginning to get left in the dust. Haven’t listened to anything since Chapter V and it did make for a bit of a bummer, as they played a lot of stuff I have never heard. Just four Break the Cycle cuts, and they were the hits, with just two tracks from Dysfunction. Not nearly the Staind show I was hoping for, but when you snooze you lose, it’s my fault for not making a better effort to catch them in their hey day. Zero complaints about the actual show, Aaron can still sing, and sounded raw and visceral. That alone was definitely worth the hassle of hitting a Pine Knob show. It was a fun trip to knock off my freshman year bucket list. Lewis did look like a dork, opting to dress like a 20 year old lame rapper trying to hock mixtapes at 7/11. I spent a lot of time during the songs I didn’t know roasting his goofy looking ass in my head. They were good live, and I’m glad I finally got to knock them off my list, even if it was 20 years later than I would have liked.
Break the Cycle and Dysfunction still slap. You should give them a listen if you haven’t experienced the greatness of those two albums. You can find them on Spotify.
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