After months of anticipation, the night arrived and we headed to Salt Lake to see Collective Soul. This was my second time seeing them, and the concert was a lot better than the last time (not to say that my first time was bad because it was still freaking awesome). There were several factors that made this time so much better--longer anticipation time, longer concert time, no nature guy. For those who aren't in the know, they played their Dosage cd from front to back without any break between songs. It was so awesome! For some time I have been conflicted about which CS album is my favorite; however, after the concert Dosage takes that spot. It was really that awesome. Only one not so great song on the album, which they omitted anyway. I didn't take a lot of photos, mostly because my camera is terrible, and I found it hard to take pictures and enjoy the concert at the same time. I would have done a lot more video too, but I happened to have the smaller memory card, and I only had enough space to take like 4 minutes of video, dang it. Here are some pics from the first half of the show.
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| Before the show, center and almost front! |
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| Ed explaining how the night will work. |
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| The rest of the guys walking on stage pre-show |
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| Like I said, my camera is kinda crappy. Still have no idea how this picture happened. |
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| Joel tuning up |
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| I had a really hard time getting many good shots of Dean. He had a nasty habit of moving as soon as I took a picture, and he was on the dark side of the stage. |
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| Ed |
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| Will on the Bass in the background |
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| Dean and Will |
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| Heavy |
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| An attempted close-up of Dean |
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| Heavy |
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| No More, No Less |
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| Needs | | | |
Here is a little bit of a video of Needs. This is the fourth song of the concert, and my voice was already almost gone.
That is the point at which I quit taking pictures during the first half of the show, partially due to a battery not being charged all the way. But as I said, Dosage was awesome. It is really hard for me to pick favorites. One of the most surprising to me was Slow, that song kicked major butt live. I also loved Generate and Crown, which had a freaking sweet intro and outro that put it over the top. Another favorite was Not the One which has become one of my favorites recently. I've actually learned to play that one on the guitar recently, and it is one of my favorites to play. Of course I loved She Said as well as the other regular concert songs. Just too freaking cool! That made the show completely worth it alone, but...
The band took a short break and came back and played all of their standard concert hits. In total the show lasted 2-3 hours. The band does get a bit a of a minus for not playing Where the River Flows, but they made up for it by playing Forgiveness. Forgiveness is another one of my all time favorite Collective Soul songs, and to hear it live was just amazing! It is another song that I have recently been learning to play on the guitar and is one of my favorites to play.
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| Welcome All Again |
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| Like I said, that side of the stage was too dark for pictures |
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| Yes, I feel Better Now! |
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| The world's done shaking me down |
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| Ed likes us! |
At this point I quit taking pictures and just enjoyed the concert. Right before the encore, December and Shine, Ed came out and told us that they were looking forward to coming back to Salt Lake next year while promoting their next album! He even mentioned something about starting the tour in Salt Lake. Gonna hold 'em to that!
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| Snuck in a picture before they kicked us out |
Immediately after leaving the stage, I told Geoff that I was ready for round 3, and I was. One of the best nights of my life! It was totally worth standing out in the sun for several hours and standing inside a bar for an hour. Such a great birthday present, thanks Geoff and Mandy. Thanks again Geoff, Scott and Kristin for the great night!
