Most rock tours coming to big arenas feature a headliner and one or more opening acts, but when two bands are fairly equal, it can be hard to assign headliner status to one over another. The solution? Co-headliners: Three Days Grace and Shinedown.
Shinedown’s current album, Amaryllis, entered the Billboard Top 200 albums chart in March 2012 at No. 4, and Three Days Grace’s current album, Transit of Venus, entered the same chart at No. 5. In another close comparison, Transit of Venus debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hard Rock Music chart, while Amaryllis debuted at No. 1 on the magazine’s Rock Album chart.
“We both play for the same amount of time,” says guitarist Zach Clark of Shinedown. “But we close the shows. Weappeal to a lot of the same fans, playing the same genre of rock, and we’ve played a lot of festivals and shows together.”
Though the band began in Jacksonville, Fla., Clark, a life-long resident of Memphis, replaced the original guitarist in 2005 after leading his own group, the Zack Meyers Band, from the age of 14. Shinedown has numerous Little Rock shows on its resume.
“We’ve gone from clubs to the arena,” Clark notes. “Juanita’s, the Clear Channel [Metroplex] building and the Riverfest Amphitheatre;
we’ve been working hard for years.”
Though Shinedown is known for its original hard rock anthems, there is one cover tune the band has repopularized: “Simple Man,” written and recorded by Lynyrd Skynyrd, another band from Jacksonville, Fla.
When Shinedown members were at work on their current album, singer Brent Smith decided the band should take new routes in thesongwriting process.
“Brent convinced us all to go for a walk or Google something, and the first thing he saw was a flower, and so he wrote the song ‘Amaryllis,’ and that became the title cut of the album also.”
The other members of Shinedown are Barry Kerch on drums and Eric Bass on bass.
Three Days Grace was founded in Ontario, Canada, in 1992, but broke up in 1995, regrouping in 1997. The band has toured with Breaking Benjamin, Flyleaf, Avenged Sevenfold, Sevendust and Bullets for My Valentine.
Members of Three Days Grace are Brad Walst on bass and vocals; Neil Sanderson on drums, keyboards, programming and vocals; and Barry Stock on guitar. Former lead singer Adam Gontier abruptly left the band Jan. 13, reportedly for medical reasons, and his replacement, for touringpurposes only, is Brad Walst’s brother, Matt Walst (who is a member of another band, My Darkest Day).
P.O.D. (Payable on Death), who will open the show, is well known to local rock fans for having formerly contained a Little Rock musician, Jason Truby. He had founded a Christian metal band, Living Sacrifice, before joining P.O.D. in late 2003, playing guitar on the band’s fifth album, Payable on Death, and on its second album, Testify, before leaving in 2006 to concentrate on solo instrumental albums. Marcos Curiel, who had been in the original lineup before Truby, returned to take over the guitar duties again. Other members of P.O.D. are Sonny Sandoval on vocals, Traa Daniels on bass and Wuv Bernardo on drums. The band released its eighth album, Murdered Love, in July 2012.
Three Days Grace and Shinedown
Opening act: P.O.D.
7 p.m. Saturday, Verizon
Arena, East Broadway and
Interstate 30, North Little
Rock
Admission: $52, $35.50
(800) 745-3000
www.ticketmaster.com, live
nation.com
Weekend, Pages 36 on 03/14/2013