Photos and Review by: Micah Gummel
Show photos HERE
3 Doors Down Acoustic Songs From The Basement tour came to The Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom August 2nd 2014. The band describes the tour as a basement jam session. This was just that, equipped with Plush couches, vintage side tables, novelty lamps (yes even the infamous leg lamp form Christmas Story), antique crates, and assorted throw rugs. The setting created the perfect atmosphere for the Mississippi rockers’ “Songs From the Basement” tour making it intimate, informal, and relaxed.
The current lineup of 3 Doors Down is made up of vocalist Brad Arnold, guitarists Chris Henderson and Chet Roberts, bassist Justin Biltonen and drummer Greg Upchurch. Arnold stopped often to talk to the crowd about the songs of about their personal life and events that brought the song about. On this night one of the VIP fans seated on the couch on the stage proposed this was quite a cool move. The band was excited for them and so was the crowd. Perhaps one of my favorite of these moments is when they played Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters and then Arnold described his experience at his first Metallica concert. His pure excitement for the show is something you don’t hear from most bands these days.
[The stripped-down nature really let us appreciate the depth of the lyrics in “Be Like That,” an early hit played early in the show. As Henderson predicted, even though the instrumentals explored new avenues, we were able to recognize the hits from the intros. Cheers rang out just a few notes into “Let Me Go,” “It’s Not My Time,” “Duck and Run,” “Loser,” the encores of “Here Without You” and the rousing “When I’m Gone,” which has been embraced by U.S. military troops. Of course a huge cheer went up for “Kryptonite.”
Later in to the show Arnold announced that the band is currently working on a new album with a tentative release scheduled for the spring of 2015, the band unveiled a couple of new tunes. Pieces of Me is in the tradition of the 3Doors Down ballads while I Don’t Wanna Know is an uptempo tune that had the band totally engaged. We are excide to here the new album most of all if you get the chance to catch this acoustic show do it its well worth the time an money to be so close and personal with a band like 3 Doors Down.
Set list
Father’s Son
Let Me Be Myself
Be Like That
Not Enough
Landing In London
The Dance
When You’re Young
Let Me Go
Pages
Away From The Sun
Not My Time
Duck And Run
Loser
Kryptonite
Nothing Else Matters
Here Without You
When I’m Gone