Stone Sour / Papa Roach
House of Gold and Bones Tour
The Rave – Milwaukee, WI
1/25/2013
In a random turn of events, I was traveling through the northern Midwest on my way home from a work trip and found out that a group of friends of mine were headed to Milwaukee to catch Stone Sour and Papa Roach on tour. Both bands had new material, with Papa Roach supporting The Connection, and Stone Sour celebrating the release of their first half of their House of Gold and Bones concept double album. We all know that I never turn down a chance to see Corey Taylor, so off I headed to The Rave in Milwaukee to check out the show.
The Venue
The Rave in Milwaukee is one of the coolest venues I’ve ever been to. An old Eagles lodge in downtown Milwaukee, just a few miles from from Marquette and the famous Milwaukee Brewery, The Rave is extremely unique. The building appears to be a century old, and the main ballroom was one of the bigger indoor venues (outside of arenas) that I’ve seen. Rather than being a big narrow rectangle like most indoor venues, the room was oval, allowing a large amount of people to get close to the stage and offering a great view to everyone in attendance.
In addition to this main room, friends of mine showed me that the place had multiple other stages, ranging from a typical indoor venue about the size of Cincinnati’s Bogarts in the basement, as well as a small stage next to a bar for up and coming bands. Lots of venue space for nearly every size show allows this place to attract any and all kinds of shows….and if you don’t believe me, check out their website for upcoming shows. The number of shows that go through there that have national recognition is incredible. The place was so cool, I even allowed myself to overlook the $10 beers and cash only policy (which I am vehemently against). Kudos Milwaukee. I will definitely be back soon.
The Show
I don’t go to hard rock shows very often anymore – as metal is really my thing, but Stone Sour and Papa Roach are two giants in the hard rock genre, and both have very deep catalogs to pull from to make a really great show. Really, anything Corey Taylor touches is good enough for me, but honestly, one of the things that helped convince me to going to this show was the perplexity of Papa Roach.
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| Jacoby Shaddix and Papa Roach doing their thing. |
The first time I saw Jacoby Shaddix and gang was in 2005 on the side stage of a festival concert, and they had just come out with the Getting Away With Murder album. I was completely underwhelmed by the show, and remember thinking that this band would never go anywhere. I held that bad taste in my mouth for years, but as they released more and more material, they started to grow on me. I saw a few more live shows and they continued to get better and better, and really, the last time I saw them was at Carb Day at the Indy 500 in 2011, and they sounded pretty good. I was anxious to see if they had continued to improve over the past two years.
I happy to announce that the Papa Roach show at The Rave was really solid throughout. Every song they played sounded great, was a recognizable radio hit, and kept the crowd energized and wanting more. They were able to hit us with songs like Getting Away with Murder, Scars, Hollywood Whore, Kick in the Teeth, and the list goes on and on….all great songs, each of which translated live very well and had tons of energy. They closed the show with my favorite of their songs – Lifeline – which became quite the popular song for my group of friends to play in Rock Band. 🙂
I will say that for me personally, the show did drag just a bit. I think they got caught up in the co-headliner concept and played a really long show, and while nearly every song was a radio hit, Papa Roach’s songs don’t differentiate themselves enough from each other for me to enjoy an hour plus of listening to them. Eventually, they all sort of bleed together and lose some of their pizzazz. The crowd definitely disagreed with me, so I’ll chalk this up to personal preference for me. Overall, it was a very strong set – the best I’ve seen them play, and I can count 10 shows I’ve seen them play off the top of my head.
On to the Main Event! The Stone Sour set was another very impressive performance by this group, and by Corey Taylor in particular. A few years back, I saw Stone Sour for the first time, and posted this blog. I was really blown away then, and this show was really no different.
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| Stone Sour Rocking Out! |
From a personnel standpoint, Stone Sour is an incredibly talented group. People forget that this is a supergroup in every sense of the word. Corey Taylor speaks from himself, but even on the instruments, names like Jim Root (guitarist – Slipknot), legendary Ray Mayorga (drums – Sepultura, Ozzy, Soulfly) and new bassist Johnny Chow (Soulfly) should indicate that even if Stone Sour isn’t your cup of tea, you can be damn sure that the music will be played incredibly precise and well.
They opened with their newest double single off of House of Gold and Bones Part 1 called Gone Sovereign/Absolute Zero. Opening with brand new stuff was a bit of a bold move, but those two songs are quickly becoming crowd favorites, and so it worked out well here. They moved right into the meat of their show after these two openers, songs like Made of Scars, Reborn, RU486, and Say You’ll Haunt Me were so good that I made my way up front to watch some of the show from up close. I’m glad I did – seeing the crowd and the band from that close was a real memorable moment for me.
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| Jim Root of Slipknot fame playing for Stone Sour |
I also picked a perfect time to head back and take a break…..after 6 or 7 heavy hitters in a row, Stone Sour slowed it down and played several slow songs with Corey Taylor playing acoustic guitar. Bother and Through Glass were both great songs, and to finish off the acoustic portion of the show, Taylor went old school and played a good portion of the song Nutshell by Alice in Chains.
Once again, 30/30-150 was their closer, and it was ridiculously good. The crowd had one more surge in it as mosh pits opened up everywhere and people were moving like crazy. It capped off another strong set front to back for Stone Sour. Easily one of my favorite hard rock bands, and I’m excited to see House of Gold and Bones Part 2 come out soon.
After the show we went to one of the coolest bars I’ve ever been to – The Safe House, which is one of Milwaukee’s most interesting places. I’d recommend it to anyone.
That’s it for now! An awesome night all around. More soon. 🙂
“Together, Together, We’ll be together. Together, Forever, I BELONG TO YOU!”