Concert

Just last month on February 14th, a couple of my friends and I went down to the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland to see the Breaking Benjamin - Three Days Grace concert with opening act Flyleaf.

The concert was a surprise to me because for starters it was my birthday, and secondly this was going to be my first ever real concert. I was incredibly skeptical about the whole concert scene. Loud noises, tons of people, and expensive soda wasn’t normally my idea of getting away. Alas, I kept an open mind about it.

Turns out planning a trip to a concert is surprisingly easy, especially if your accompanied by some seasoned concert veterans. The planning consisted of buying the tickets, finding a large enough vehicle through relatives, begging said relatives, buying drinks and food, downloading a map from Google, playing with Google Map Satellites, arguing about the effectiveness of Google Maps, then just relying on personal memories for directions.

Flyleaf took center stage as the opening act for the show. They encouraged excitement from the crowd with their high-energy enthusiasm. Lead singer Lacey, sporting a long gray dress, opened the set with their 2007 hit "Fully Alive". Lacey never fails to keep up the excitement while jumping to the beat of each tune, and swaying her arms up toward the heavens. Bassist Pat Seals and guitarist Sameer Bhattacharya also managed to keep up the hype as they ran up and down the stage, jumping from platform to platform. They played a few hits from their newest album "Memento Mori", which means "Remember You Will Die", relating back to their Christian ideals. Lacey belted out the high pitched whispers in hits from her latest album which include, "Again", "Chasm", and "Beautiful Bride". At one point nearing the end of the show, Lacey complimented the crowd. She described her band as just a bunch of people from Texas who became famous, and that they were no better than anybody else. This stirred booming approval from the crowd as the band concluded their set. They ended with a slow, poetic song called "How he Loves". Despite the band's poor audio quality, they tried to manage a fairly solid sound and performed an awesome show.

Breaking Benjamin took the stage shortly after Flyleaf. The stage set up included a drop down screen in the background. They featured footage from their own videos. They even used cinematic clips from the Xbox game Halo, during which they performed "Blow Me Away". The band did an excellent cover of Aerosmith's "Dream On", during which they paid tribute to musicians who have passed away. Some of these stars included Kurt Cobain, Dimebag Darrell, and of course, Michael Jackson. Frontman Benjamin Burnley took advantage of the screen with his own mobile live cam. He aimed the camera towards the audience and made them scream for t-shirts. The band also surprised the crowd by performing older tunes like "Polyamorous" off the 2002 album Saturate. Ben's talented guitar skills and meaningful lyrics made for a monumental set.

Three Days Grace proved to be the headlining band, opening up their show with one of their latest singles, "Break". They got the crowd wild with their impressive light shows and had excellent timing to the beat of the music with their use of pyrotechnics. Frontman Adam Gontier dressed in his typical white shirt and black vest, entertained the crowd with a Phil Collins cover, "In the Air Tonight". We also got to see a surprising drum solo from the usually shy, Neil Sanderson. The drum set was mounted on a movable turntable so it moved in circles while Sanderson performed. This later proved as the perfect distraction while Adam snuck through the center to perform the Apocalyptica collaboration, "I Don't Care". He sang the tune on an elevated platform conveniently located in the middle of the crowd right in front of the sound booth. The band encouraged the audience to sing with them some of their hit songs like, "I Hate Everything About You" and "Home". Adam addressed the crowd, recalling that this was his third show in Maine and that the band would be nothing without their fans. They concluded the show with “Animal I have Become”.

Even though it was a sold out show, there was a slightly less rambunctious mosh pit than I'm used to witnessing at the Civic Center. Another negative aspect was the audio during Flyleaf where we could barely hear Lacey and her angelic singing. This caused most of the audience to tune out until the brief intermission. We also noticed a significant decrease in the merchandise pricing with Flyleaf than compared to the value pricing of Three Days Grace and Breaking Benjamin's broad selection of t-shirts, hoodies, and panties. On a lighter note, I found it humorous that the artists specifically requested that all water be sold in cups rather than bottles to avoid being pummeled by the rowdy audience.