Seether Concert - Dallas - August 5, 2008

At the Palladium Ballroom. Safety Suit and Red opening.

For my money, Seether lead singer/songwriter Shaun Morgan is the best thing going in rock music right now. As an 'old school' guy that didn't think through his 'bit' and hairstyle before he even wrote a single song (like most of the rock acts out now) he and Seether have succeeded based on excessive talent and one of my new favorite voices.

At the Palladium Tuesday night, the band was tight, loud!, and perfect. After seeing Seether last fall as an opener for other bands, I was pumped about the prospect of seeing them as the headliner of their own show - and I wasn't disappointed. They took the stage at 10:20pm with music playing and a curtain covering the front of the stage, with only a swinging light visible at first, with each of their profiles becoming visible during the opening to the first song, with the curtain dropping at the first drumbeat and power chord. I hadn't seen that before, and it worked. Click below for more SEETHER and tales from a rowdy concert:

The band's set is simple, with some small lights on the microphone stands and drumkit, with a little utilized video screen behind them. As I said before, Seether is interested in their music, not their 'bit'. Morgan's voice was strong despite their extensive touring, and he sang each song with conviction and concern for the quality of the music. His low and growly (but not too much so) voice and songwriting make him like the perfect son of Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain. They played several songs off of their new album, including "Rise Above This", "Fake It", "Like Suicide", and others. All were good, and live they really closed the deal with me on the quality of the songs. They also played some of my favorites from their previous albums, "The Gift", "Broken" (done acoustically), "Gasoline", "Fine Again" (favorite), "Remedy", "Truth" and a good, but not great cover of STP's "Creep". Refreshingly, the band did not do an encore, instead making it clear that their last song was just that. Encores are so contrived now that I much prefer just a longer set to a faux encore. The sound mix for the show was great (could've used just a little bit more of Morgan's voice) and the guitars were crunchy and loud.

The Palladium is a great venue, with standing capacity of 1600 and an easily seen raised stage and ridiculously loud sound system. I love seeing bands that still care at venues of this size and it creates the perfect setting for a great show. The one big drawback was the inexplicable scrum of bodyslamming that opened up just in front of us (about 15 feet fron the stage) and grew into a circle of jackassery of about 500 square feet for the entire show (a 'slam pit'). As a post-primordial male, I've never been into that scene, which involves slamming into other male/simians while not really listening to the band you paid $30 to see and drove downtown for. The worst part is that of course all of the people surrounding the scrum have to absorb blows and push the jackasses back into the melee. People that take part in that activity should be put in a home.

Note: Original Appraiser - go see these guys in Lubbock on the 10th.