Nickelback still loud 'n' proud

Nickelback - LG Arena

By Debbie Bennett

2004 - It still rings in my head as being the loudest gig I'd ever donned my rock-chick top for, and I was thankful I'd packed earplugs for my seven-year-old son who was quite unprepared for the balcony-shaking volume.

The band were new Canadians-on-the-block, Nickelback, who were happily blasting the ears off fans who packed Wolverhampton Civic Hall four years ago.

The post-grunge band formed in Alberta in the 1990s, but it wasn't until How You Remind Me from their third album Silver Side Up, hit the top spot in the US and Canada in 2001, that rock fans here started to sit up and take notice.

And if I thought their onslaught of tunes last night would be lost in the void of the rebranded LG Arena, I couldn't have been more wrong.

The rockers are the first to play at the former NEC Arena since it's name change, and leapt in front of the sell-out crowd after an intro of Motley Crue's Girls Girls Girls and an ear-splitting bang, launching straight into Animals, followed by their hit nostalgia song Photograph.

A suberb mix of album tracks followed, interspersed with fireworks, jets of flames and sexy frontman Chad Kroeger's cheerful banter with the fans.

"Here's one for the ladies," he crooned, as the Vancouver-based foursome played the ballad Far Away.

The setlist was an attention-getting mix of hard rock and smoother acoustic-led tracks, and included guitarist Ryan Peake providing a superb vocal cover of Elton John's Saturday Night¹s Alright For Fighting, rocked up with his stunning Flying V.

Side of a Bullet provided a moving tribute to metal band Panthera's "Dimebag" Darrel who was shot dead on stage in 2004.

Other highlights were How You Remind Me, If Everyone Cared, Savin' Me and a Daniel Adair drum solo on an unintentionally comical moving platform that resembled a hostess trolley!

At one point, T-shirts fired into the crowd from "cannons" operated by a series of onstage volunteers, and plastic cups half-filled with beer and tossed to fans, some of which were rather expertly caught.

The band finished their main set with the superb Too Bad and, in anticipation of the encore, this was the only time the cardboard-cutout seated crowd could be bothered to make a real noise.

Of course, we were treated to the hit song Rockstar, made famous recently due to its employment on the DFS television ad.

"Do you know what it's like to have your song used on a sofa ad?" joked Kroeger. "Do you realise what rockstars do on their sofas?!"

Although presumably the TV version is minus the lyric "everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial".

Figure You Out finished off the superb night along with more fireworks, jets of dry ice and flames from which the heat could be felt from a hundred feet away.

Nickelback are a superb bunch of entertainers, with accurately-honed harmonies, tight rock riffs, jokery and quite a bit of swearing - ­ all totally necessary when we all just wanna be big rock stars.

The only gripes from last night were the seated crowd, most of whom might as well have been watching the band on TV, and a poorly positioned screen at the back of the stage which was completely obscured to many in the side the seating areas by the arena's giant speakers.

And please, LG, do something to liven up your flat, warm cola.