Put down the iPhones. Quit updating Facebook and taking pictures and sit back and enjoy the music. Because there is nothing better in the world than a kick ass live rock-n-roll show!
I am paraphrasing just a bit here but you get the jest. This was what Sully Erna said from the hard rock band Godsmack to a near sold out show at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage, Alaska last September.
He is right. There is nothing like it. Godsmack rocks!Â
When my wife and I attended this no frills show at the Sully we were blown away. They played for almost two hours and it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. No pyro. No light show. Just a balls-to-the-wall rock-n-roll band playing an intimate show to a few thousand people in the Great White North. It was a great time because rock concerts are hard to come by in the Last Frontier.
I bought the tickets before my wife even had a plane ticket to move up here. I said you need to get up here by September 5th because we have a concert to get to.
I will never forget the more than 15 minute rendition of the instrumental The Oracle, Sully on the drums with Batalla de los Tambores, and the guitar and bass riffs of Awake that shook you to the core. If you have been to a Godsmack show you know it is the real deal. This isn’t some video on YouTube or you sitting at home watching it on the big screen in your underwear with a remote control.
Just the past week, Godsmack released their first ever live set–Live and Inspired. Including covers of Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way, Pink Floyd’s Time, The Beatles Come Together and Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters.
I bought the CD while up in Tok, Alaska watching over my friends pack of Iditarod sled dogs. There is not much to do up here. No Mickey D’s. No WiFi and five-dollar double shot espressos with whip. What a better place to enjoy some good ole’ American-made rock-n-roll. None of this groomed boy band crap singing about Boyfriends.
I sat back in an old rickety lawn chair in the bight sunshine, closed my eyes and let the music take over. It did just that.
Track listings:
- Straight Outta Line
- Realign
- Awake
- Moon Baby
- Changes
- The Enemy
- Keep Away
- Speak
- Voodoo
- Batalla de los Tambores
- Whatever
- Serenity
- I Stand Alone
- Rocky Mountain Way
- Come Together
- Time
- Nothing Else Matters
If you want a rare treat to add to your ever increasing music library that is so large that you have to keep it in some place called the “cloud”, Godsmack’s Live and Inspired is worth the 12 bucks and the next time a live show rolls through your town, cash in that change at the local Coinstar and go enjoy yourself. You will be glad you did.
