Halcyon Repose

Thanks to the glorious traffic provided to us by the Orange County Fair, we arrived a bit late to this concert. Buckcherry was already halfway through their set, but I did get to hear a number of songs I was looking forward to on the way into the venue. You could tell the band was obviously heavily produced in the studio, either that or the evening’s heat was getting to the lead singer. Album perfect harmonies are never a requirement for me, and I still found the group enjoyable. I would have liked to hear the whole set, but c’est la vie.

Papa Roach came on next, and they totally dominated the arena. The energy the lead singer put off was amazing and soon everyone was up and out of their seats. He is another example of a heavily produced singer, but his raw throaty voice fits the music style. I only recently got into Papa Roach (I picked up the album after buying tickets to the concert), but they mostly played their newer songs, or songs that got a lot of radio play, so I very rarely felt lost. Jacoby seemed a little irked at the restrictions placed on them by the venue, and he swore they would never be playing there again. I can understand the venue’s point of view, it was a part of the fairgrounds and there were many families out and about. In between hitting on all the pretty girls in the audience, Jacoby soon broke every rule he was able, whipping the audience into a frenzy.

Hot on the heels of Papa Roach came Hinder. Hinder’s debut album Extreme Behavior was an album that I had fallen in love with, and I was truly looking forward to this set. The album itself is obviously eye catching, more bands need a red longerie clad beauty on the cover, but I had managed to keep from picking it up from the Target racks for many months. I finally broke down and picked it up in one of my BMG orders, and upon receiving it, I immediately knew this was an album I could get behind. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is the subject matter. Beyond the the opening song, the entire album is composed entirely of break-up themes. Either he was trying to break up with a girl, or he had already broken up and was try to reconcile/move on. It makes for a bit of a depressing, melancholy listen, but a good one none-the-less. The instrumentals balance out the lyrics nicely, and provide for an excellent listening experience.

My first surprise when they came out on stage was how much their lead singer, Austin Winkler, was going for the Steve Tyler look, down to the knotted ribbons on the microphone stand, and singing poses. The atmosphere in the arena definitely fell a notch after they started, and as much as I dig their hard instrumentals, I feel the show was limited by the subject matter. The audience soon found their seats, and stayed there for most of the show, a marked change over the energy from the Papa Roach set. They tried hard to bring up the energy level, but somehow fell short, that is of course, until they performed “Get Stoned” during the encore. Partly because of the edge of the song, partly because it was a well known single, and partly due to the singability of the chorus, the audience rallied up to send off the band in true style. The set was enjoyable, but it was hard to reconcile the band on stage with the impressions I received from the album. If Hinder came back with another band I wanted to see, I would love to catch them again, but I would also be perfectly fine with just supporting them by purchasing and enjoying their albums.

After the show, we were allowed into the fair for free. We obviously used this opportunity to partake of fair food (the food of legends) and meandered through the fair. Not as memorable of an experience as I would have liked, but a fun night overall.