3 Doors Down - House of Blues Boston

Concert week started with Monday night's show at House of Blues with 3 Doors Down and Hoobastank.

I'm a bit surprised that I was quite adamant to see 3 Doors Down. They are one of those bands that have a lot of really good songs and more than a few absolute smashes. I thought it would be a fun combination of band and venue, and it was.

It may not seem this way all the time, but at heart, I am a rock guy.

I heard on WFNX this morning that the line for the J. Geils show at the House of Blues' opening last week was simply dreadful. People were waiting for an hour in the rain while the security staff took forever to clear attendees.

So when Tye and I found a line about 80 people deep, we weren't too optimistic. Thankfully, it went quickly, and we were inside within about 10 minutes.

Wisely, we skipped the coat check. Good call - there were way too many people trying to get their coats at the same time after the show. It looked like chaos.

Once we walked into the concert hall, the first opener, Safety Suit, was still on stage. We navigated up the right-hand side toward stage left, realizing that it wasn't agonizingly loud. So we grabbed a couple overpriced drinks ($6.50 for a can of Corona, and $7.50 for a tiny shot of vodka), and kept walking until we were literally on the side of the stage - quite a cool spot from which to view the show.

I must say, the actual concert venue doesn't seem much different from Avalon beyond the brightly colored paintings and artwork adorning all of the walls. There's also two balconies, the top one also containing some stadium seating. Perhaps it didn't seem too different because all of the shows I saw at Avalon, I was on the general admission floor, the same spot where I stood Monday night.

Hoobastank was OK. They played most of their singles, but the crowd simply wasn't into them. They played for about 40 minutes and closed with "The Reason" (their only sing-a-long song) and "Crawling in the Dark."

3 Doors Down took the stage around 9:30 and simply owned it. They had the audience from the first note - great stage presence, tight songs, and lots of popular songs. Overall, pretty amazing.

The bassist kept coming over to our side and every so often let a few of the women nearby strum his bass. Eventually he threw a pick at me, but it bounced off of my stomach and was picked up by someone who I'm sure appreciates it more than I would have.

Their set had all of the hits:

Citizen/Soldier
Be Like That
Here Without You
Loser
Duck and Run
Landing in London
Away From the Sun
Train
Kryptonite
It's Not My Time
When I'm Gone
...and about 6 or 7 others.

I didn't even feel too old to be there. The crowd was mixed, and seemed pretty well put-together, given what I expected of 3 Doors Down concert attendees.

Overall, two thumbs up!