Stone Sour, 15th November 2017, Den Grå Hal, Copenhagen, Denmark

Archive photo: Zoran www.sonic-shot.com

Last night’s sold-out show was at the same time band’s biggest headlining show on Danish soil and it comes few months after the release of band’s weakest album to date, Hydrograd. The new album is their first not to feature Jim Root on guitar who was replaced by Christian Martucci. It’s also a first album to feature well as the first album to feature Johnny Chow on bass.
I’ve witnessed the band playing a festival gig in California couple of weeks ago and they did well. Roots presence and overall importance is missed and the festival gig suffered from early spot, short time on stage and simply dreadful sound for the better part of the 45 minutes band had on stage. The concert had its moments, but knowing that Stone Sour usually deliver solid shows this gig was a let-down.

For their Copenhagen gig they’ve chose Den Grå Hal in “freetown” Christiania, which can be a very good venue for rock concerts. It’s impressive that the place was sold out and that one a dull Wednesday evening, so perhaps the Foo Fighters approach to the latest album did work?

The band opened with couple of new songs with hazy sound being corrected by the end of the opener “Taipei Person / Allah Tea. They followed it with three classics “Reborn”, “Say You’ll Haunt Me” and “30/30-150”, which together served as extremely good start for a concert.

Despite the jetlag, bands main man Corey Taylor was bursting with energy and his entertaining value was off the cart. There isn’t much new in what he does on stage, quite contrary the same tricks have been used for by other for the better part of last 50 years, but Taylor does have a certain quality that sells his statements and movements that are otherwise blow out of proportion. They are also extremely calculated; he’s praising the crowd like he does on any of the other concerts. He makes us feel special and he has charisma to do so by twisting the truth and using the cheapest tricks in the book.
As for the rest of the band they are fairly anonymous on stage thou bit more in the front then during their last visit to Denmark.

The great opening of the show was followed with few songs that kinda lost the grip of the crowd. “Hesitate” was introduced as a song they didn’t play in a long time, which is in no way true, “Tired” didn’t live up to its potential and “Rose Red Violent Blue (This Song Is Dumb & So Am I)” is just a really weak song. Even more so live.
But soon after things got more on track and the band finished the regular part of the show with singalong orgy in form of “Song #3” and “Through the Glass”.

They came back shortly after for the best possible encore. It all just worked perfectly and even the silly Wacky Waving Tube Man during “Fabuless” seemed like a good idea.

Taylor is a great frontman. He might overdo those “American-clichés”, he might ask the crowd have they seen “Slipkn.. Stone Sour” before, he might even shoot confetti out of a shotgun few times during the show, but by God the man has an explosive magnetic aura about him when he’s on stage. And let’s not forget that he sings very well. His voice did show minor signs of weakness during the encore, but nothing that affected the performance in general.

Taylor has a power to lift up things live and this concert was a perfect example of that.

SETLIST:

01 – Taipei Person / Allah Tea
02 – Knievel Has Landed
03 – Made of Scars
04 – Reborn
05 – Say You’ll Haunt Me
06 – 30/30-150
07 – Hesitate
11 – Tired
12 – Rose Red Violent Blue (This Song Is Dumb & So Am I)
13 – Do Me a Favor
14 – Cold Reader
15 – Get Inside
16 – Song #3
17 – Through the Glass
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18 – Gone Sovereign
19 – Absolute Zero
20 – Fabuless