August 2, 2022 Shinedown

We walked into the South Okanagan Event Centre and the air was filled with energy and excitement. The flow of people mingled toward their seats and loud booming rock thundered all around.

After two cancelations and two years of hesitation, another rock concert was lifting off in the sleepy city of Penticton.

There was very little sleep taking place in the areas near the event centre.

We were filled with a sense of excitement as the first act Aryen Jones played their brand of raucous rock music. They sounded good but they were not the ones we were there for. My wife and I were meeting friends at the show, so we sat down at the window of the bar and watched the musicians thunder away on the stage below.

Hard rock band, Pop Evil was the second act and they took the stage with electrifying rythim’s and rocked the audience to new heights. I was surprised at how many of their songs I knew. After one song, Jeff walked in. Where was his wife? She bailed at the last minute, not feeling it, he said – her loss, I replied.

It would turn out to be her loss indeed. 

We walked to the seats that we managed to buy for the low price of $ 25.00 on a sale through facebook. What an amazing price for such a great performance. 

We stood back and looked down at our seats, they were at the back of the arena. It was a shortened stage so they were not bad seats. But after watching the first two acts from the bar we were not keen on shuffling into the middle of a row crowded by people on all sides. We’d seen an empty area of seats just below the window of the bar. These seats were much closer to the stage even though they were off to the side. I warned them the sound wouldn’t be as good, but hey, they were really close to the stage, how bad could the sound be?

When the singer Brent Smith, came onto the stage and began to sing his first few notes we found out how bad the sound could be.

After a few songs straining to hear the vocals, I started to look for a better place to hear the music. I told Jeff that the best place for the sound was right behind the sound booth. I looked to the back of the rink and saw a large section of seats right behind the sound guys, there was no one in them. It looked like a perfect place to see, hear and dance to the booming melodies we could feel pulsing through our bodies.

We changed our seats one more time and the difference was night and day. The seats on the side of the stage had barely any sound from vocals at all while the sound in the middle was almost perfect. The music flowed through the air and the music lifted my spirit and my soul. 

I love rock and roll.

The band sang into the night and the singer gushed his gratitude for the crowds return. We could tell the band was just as happy as the fans to be back connecting with the musical universe. The roar of the crowd encouraged the musicians to play an encore and make every moment count.

Shinedown first came to my attention when I saw their moving rendition of The Lynyrd Skynyrd classic song, Simple Man. I looked forward to hearing them play it live.

They would not disappoint.

Brent Smith’s voice echoed into the night as the crowd joined in and belted out the lyrics. The connection with the song, the band, and the crowd warmed my heart and filled my soul with joy. He came to final verse in the song and asked for 100 percent from the crowd.

He got it and we gave it. 

We walked out of the show satisfied, connected with something bigger than any one individual. Everyone gloried in the power of the moment, and the power of the music.