Disturbed, Chevelle and Nothing More at TD Place in Ottawa

Ladies and gentlemen,

There are not just bad things coming from the United States of America these days. About a month ago, I attended a concert of Disturbed, Chevelle and Nothing More at TD Place in Ottawa and it turned out to be an energizing, entertaining and memorable night.

The first group to hit the stage was Nothing More. I hadn't heard of this band before but they convinced me right from the start. They interacted very well with the crowd, had tons of fun on stage and were very entertaining thanks to instrumental solos, a phenomenal light show and a lot of movement on stage. Two particular elements of their show were the four-man percussion solo and especially a bass guitar solo where two members were picking away on the fingerboard and another one using drum sticks to hammer away on the chords of the bass' body.

Nothing More played a mixture of catchy alternative rock and contemporary alternative metal that worked very well in concert. The band also had a few more technical aspects to their sound and even included slightly progressive elements. This is definitely a band I need to discover more. If the future of metal sounds like this, I'm looking forward to it. 

Up next were veteran alternative metal and post-grunge group Chevelle. While the trio delivered a sympathetic, intimate and energizing performance on stage, I found their music less spectacular than what Nothing More had delivered before and what Disturbed were going to present to a crowd somewhere around two to three thousand spectators.

In my opinion, Chevelle's sound felt as if it were still stuck in the very beginning of the millennium and recalled groups such as Drowning Pool in my opinion. The band neither had the urgency nor the originality to stand out. Their performance was acceptable and even above average for an opening act but I wouldn't be interested in seeing them live again or listening to one of their albums. Nothing More and Disturbed were playing on a very different level that night.

Now it was about time for Disturbed to hit the stage and deliver a powerful performance that lasted close to one and a half hours. The band played thirteen regular songs plus two tracks as an encore for a total of fifteen tunes.

To my surprise, the band only played three tracks from its solid new record Immortalized and offered a more diversified set list instead including songs from all studio albums.

The set list was three or four tracks shorter if compared to other concerts on that same tour because singer David Draiman had some health issues. Despite that inconvenience, he did a great job on stage and nailed each song he performed with energy and passion.

My personal highlights of the set were the great opener ''Ten Thousand Fists'' with its Asian folk elements which is still one of my favorite tracks of the band, the powerful new single ''The Vengeful One'', the charming power ballad ''The Light'' where the crowd showed their cell phones and lighters and the brilliant closer in form of the classic ''Down with the Sickness'', a song that my friends and I had already celebrated ferociously in metal pubs in Germany ten years ago.

 The band also included two cover songs in its set list, namely Simon & Garfunkel's ''The Sound of Silence'' and Genesis' ''Land of Confusion''. Even though I like the original versions of both tracks, I prefer Disturbed's renditions. It doesn't happen that often that I prefer cover versions over original versions. In this case, ''The Sound of Silence'' truly unfolds its epic majesty thanks to additional acoustic and symphonic arrangements. The angry rendition of ''Land of Confusion'' fits the serious lyrics better than the more harmonious original version in my book. It wasn't a surprise that these two tracks probably received the greatest acclaim that night along with ''Down with the Sickness'' and maybe ''The Light''.

In the end, it had been a great concert night. Disturbed had been excellent, Nothing More had been very good and Chevelle had been solid as well. I hope to see more bands of this kind making their way to Ottawa. It's interesting to travel to Montreal from time to time to attend a show but I have been doing this way too many times over the past months. Next Friday I will be back in Montreal again to attend a concert of Swedish occult rock group Ghost and by the end of the month I will see In Flames in concert in Montreal as well. I will try to update this blog with more concert pictures and impressions in the near future.