Daughtry Rocks The Greensboro Coliseum

There’s nothing like coming home, whether it’s after a long day at work or after visiting the in-laws. It’s even that much more special when you are a rock star travelling by bus from city to city and forgetting what your own bed feels like. Former American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry brought his Break the Spell tour to the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC on April 7. Although Greensboro is not his hometown, it’s very close to the town of Roanoke Rapids, NC where he grew up.

Daughtry hasn’t been packing them in on this tour like he has done in the past. I’m not sure if it’s because of the economy or if it’s because his popularity is waning. The crowd of just over 5000 welcomed him with open arms and he was all business once he hit the stage. There coliseum did block off almost half of the coliseum with the stage being almost in the center of the floor to give the illusion of a bigger crowd than what was actually there.

The night’s set list focused heavily from his latest album Break the Spell as nine of the album’s twelve tracks were performed. It’s no secret that this newest album from Daughtry hasn’t sold as well as any of his previous releases. Was the set list a marketing ploy? Deliver the goods and hope that would encourage someone to buy the new album after the show? It was a bold move, especially considering that most bands only play a couple of song s from their new album that they are promoting.

The band opened with “Renegade”, not the classic Styx song, and “Break the Spell”, both from the new album. The crowd was really into the new stuff, but the night was early and they were all pumped up to see Chris and the boys. Next up was “Feels Like Tonight” and that really got the crowd fired up. They immediately went back to the new material with five songs in a row, including a very striking version of “Start of Something New”.

The next two performances were stripped down to just Chris at the end of the catwalk and an acoustic guitar. He poured his heart into very passionate and heartfelt performances of “What About Now” and “Home”.  The set ended with a rocking cover of Tom Petty’s “Running Down a Dream” followed by “September”. The encore consisted of a killer version of Billy Idol’s 80s classic “Rebel Yell” and Daughtry’s first single “It’s Not Over”.

Chris definitely puts his all into a show and he has a solid band to back him up. They sounded as good live if not better than the album. It’s a shame that more people didn’t turn out for this “homecoming” show. Maybe by ending the show with “It’s Not Over” was a message to everyone that even though record sales and ticket sales are down, Daughtry plan to be here for a very long time.

Textures

Tiffany Shea probably wrote her first song inside her mother’s womb. It seems as if just seconds after birth she had booked her first show. I’m pretty sure that she got her first standing ovation from the visitors looking at her in the hospital. You see, Tiffany is more than your flavor of the week artist. In an industry of manufactured artists, she is definitely a breath of fresh air. She has the personality to win over the most unruly crowd and the spunk and determination to make her dreams come true.


Tiffany last stormed through Greensboro in 2004 when she played the SWET. "You know, I think that it was one of the coolest club shows that I have ever done. All of the kids were really close to the stage and they were really listening intently to what I was expressing. It was kind of like pouring a glass of water. As opposed to pouring it out all over the floor, each kid there was a glass and they were full of the water that I poured out by the end of my set. They really absorbed it and took it all in. It was really cool," said Tiffany in a phone interview we recently conducted.


Tiffany is not a stranger to the music scene as I soon learned. She has been performing since 1997, first solo and then with her band in November of that same year. She has released an amazing 13, yes 13, CDs in that amount of time. I think the only artist to put out more CDs on that time frame would be Tupac, but he doesn’t count since he’s not touring anymore.


She was born into a musical family with her dad being a drummer and her mom was a piano teacher. She then moved to singing in church and later community theater. Her love for the arts also extends to art and her love of painting. "When I was 19 years old, I went to see Sister 7 who were out of Austin, Texas. They were a power, passion funk/rock band. I knew the minute that I saw them perform that was what I wanted to do with my life. It’s kind of funny, Patrice Pike was in that band at the time and she and I will be touring together later this summer."


Tiffany’s sound, both vocally and musically is very unique. Imagine taking the over the top personality of Cyndi Lauper, add a little Pat Benatar, a touch of Tori Amos and sprinkle in some Ani DiFranco and put them all in a blender and process them and you get a touch of what this women is capable of. If someone were deaf and she had to paint a canvas to describe her sound to them, how would she do it? "Wow, that’s an amazing question. Well, you know I love to paint. I think all of my art is an extension of who I am. I think the canvas would have lots of bold colors and it would be multimedia with tons of textures so that they could touch it and feel all the differences. It would be abstract yet evoking a feeling that’s universal at the same time. My music is raw, human emotion. I think I capture that where it’s not cryptic or so black and white that it’s boring." I can say for certain, that boring is one word that has never been used to describe this young lady.


The music industry has been in such turmoil the last few years and yet Tiffany is determined to keep marching on just as she has done for over ten years now. I was curious as to what keeps her going? " I have been doing this since 1997. I have funded all but two of my CD releases, they were on independent labels. In the summer of 2005, I had a major career letdown and I crashed and burned. I was burnt out! I mean, I had been doing all of this by myself: I booked my own shows, I was my own graphic designer, I was funding my CDs, it just got to be too much on me. I just walked away from it and tried to figure out what it was that I wanted to do. I tried working in a office and quickly found out that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I went to audio engineer school and I constantly found myself wanting to be on the other side of the glass. I went to art school and I was constantly drawing about music. The songs just kept coming into my head and I had to get them out. It’s then that I figured out that, music, it’s not what I do, it’s who I am. It’s my gift and I have to be diligent with it."


Her 2003 release "Phoenix" garnered her praise from all over and numerous awards. What was it about that CD that registered with people? "I think it was the first album that really captured the sound and the feeling of me. It was also super high quality. We really took out time and we wanted it to be right and not just do it to do it, you know what I mean? The power of the music on that CD really did shine. Actually we just re-released a new version called ‘Phoenix II’ this year. It’s been re mixed and edited. There are a few songs that were left off from the original release and some stuff added to it. It’s like ‘Phoenix’ on steroids!"


On a personal note, do you have any guilty pleasures that you can share with your fans. Well, as long as they are printable? "Ha ha! If they’re not printable, I think I will keep those to myself. I guess my one big one right now would be chocolate chip ice cream....I sure am glad you didn’t ask me that question ten years ago!"
One more question as a more fun one for your fans. I always ask everyone that I interview this one. If you were trapped on a desert island and could only have one CD, it has to be a store bought CD, what would you want to have with you? "Oh that’s easy, it would have to be U2 ‘The Joshua Tree’, without a doubt. There are other favorites that I would also love to take such as Tori Amos ‘From the Choirgirl Hotel’ or Heart’s ‘Greatest Hits’ with their eighties stuff on it or Sting ‘Ten Summoner’s Tales’."


Again, Tiffany’s performance at the Somewhere Else Tavern is on Saturday, June 6 at 8:00 PM. If you have never seen her perform live, this will be a treat for all. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take us five more years to get her to come back and visit.

A Light Divided

Every band has to start somewhere. I didn't use to be much on seeing local bands perform because all I was seeing was the same old song and dance. Well, that recently changed when I went to the Somewhere Else Tavern in Greensboro, NC to check out A Light Divided. They were at a show in Danville,VA that I attended at Plan B and I only caught two songs and it had me a little intrigued. I actually checked them out on MySpace and I really liked what I heard. I contacted the band and made arrangements to see them the following Saturday.

The band had been together for about a year and was actually members from three bands that combined into one. The show that i was attending that night was actually the first show for new bassist Mike Underwood and guitarist Eric Humiston. I talked to the band before the show to get a little insight into what they were made of. I asked guitarist James Lewis about where the name originated from. "Well, I actually came up with the name. It was the third thing that I had written down. Actually, nobody liked it at first, but we had to have a name that day. It's actually grown on everyone since then."

I asked lead singer Jaycee Clark how she met up with the band. " I was actually driving down from Jersey where I was staying and rehearsing and playing with these guys and then driving back home 3 and 4 times a week and finally moved here."

I was also curious as to the limitations or obstacles of having a female fronted band. Drummer Adam Smith said," There are lot of bands that we know who use it as a gimmick. I mean it has its advantages, but a gimmick can only last for so long. We play what we play because it's what we'd wanna hear if we were in the crowd. It's really hard to define our sound. Sometimes when you do so, you limit yourself as to who you can play with."

"I believe that we would play with just about anyone as long as they believe in us," responded bassist Mike Underwood.

The band's influences include a slew of artists ranging from the Deftones to Killswitch Engage to Atreyu. Those artists plus similar bands including Coheed and Cambria, Kill Hannah, Secret Lives, gaslight Anthem and Trivium are among there artists of choice when it comes to personal listening tastes.

Who would the band love to share the stage with one day? Jaycee was quick to respond with the Deftones! Other responses ranged from Sevendust to Killswitch Engage to Severe Your Ties. During the entire interview, Jaycee was constantly "abused" by her band mates. "Do you see how they treat me? It's tough being the only female in the only female in the band, but I can stand my own against them. They are constantly running around the stage, so I have to be on my guard or I will get run over."

Adam then told me that the band usually takes the month of December off and would be entering the studios hopefully in February of 2009 to start recording the followup to their first CD "Before The Fall" which came out in April of 2008. I did ask them my traditional question of being stuck on a desert island with only one store bought CD, what would it be? Jaycee's choice would be Green Day "Dookie", to which I found out we went to the same show at the Cricket Arena and saw them on the American Idiot tour. Adam's choice would be the Smashing Pumpkins "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" CD. James' choice was GWAR's "13 Ways To Bleed Onstage" CD.

We then went inside as the guys started setting up their equipment. The band went on stage with a furry and quickly grabbed the crowds attention. Jaycee has great vocals that translate very well on the live stage. She is a very attractive woman who gets your attention visually, but she really does have the chops to back it up. I also have to say that James' personality on stage really gets the crowd involved. He can be a bit of a comic, but he really does lay down some mean riffs on the guitar. James is also in charge of "screams" . Adam worked up a fury on the drums as he was drenched in sweat by the end of the first song.

Adam told me that they like to keep their set short so that it leaves the audience wanting more. "There's nothing like being in the crowd and watching a band who drags out their set too long. You lose your audience's attention and they get bored. We don't wanna do that."

The band did hang around both before and after the show to pose for pictures and sign autographs. They had a merchandise booth with a tshirt and their CD and stickers available. I was lucky enough to see them again about 2 weeks later and the show was really hot. The new members definitely seem to have fit in really well. The second show that I saw was alot tighter and the band was really on their game that night.

You should go to their MySpace page and check them out. You can hear a few songs from their first CD there. If you like rock with an edge, you need to check them out. Having a female lead singer is not a gimmick for them, it's a element that works very well. I have to admit that my favorite tracks on the CD are "Just Like You " and "If You Don't Succeed", but their is not a bad track on the CD. I bought it at the first show I went to and it did not leave my CD player for days.

How would I describe their sound? Good question, I can hear different influences in their music. James does a little of the screamo stuff like on some early Hawthorne Heights.....R.I.P. Casey. I think they have a unique sound, it is kinda metal pop, but they can get a little hardcore if they wanna. They play all around North Carolina and you can catch dates on their MySpace. It is well worth the drive and money to catch these guys. I personally think that they are something special just waiting to break free. There is alot of potential there and they seem hungry. Only time and hard work will tell.