Concert review: Nickelback’s new songs fail to inspire, but people still love the big, loud, dumb old hits

Ross Raihala, Pioneer Press
·4 min read

It seems the famously nostalgic 2005 smash “Photograph” has taken on a new meaning for Nickelback, who headlined St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center on Monday night.

Or, to put it another way, it’s been rough going as of late for the Canadian rockers, who spent the time from 2001 to 2014 selling out arenas and scoring worldwide hits with songs like “How You Remind Me,” “Someday” and “Rockstar” (all three of which joined a stripped-down “Photograph” in Monday’s set list).

Things started going south in 2015. The previous year, the group added electronic dance elements to their own brand of hard rock on their eighth album “No Fixed Address.” Fans and radio largely rejected the new songs and midway through the tour, lead singer Chad Kroger was diagnosed with an operable cyst on his voice box, leading to the cancellation of an entire leg of the tour (including a planned stop at Target Center) so Kroger could undergo surgery. His wife, Avril Lavigne, also announced the couple’s divorce.

In the time since, Nickelback issued a pair of back-to-the-basics albums — including last year’s “Get Rollin’” — that were largely ignored, even in Canada, where seven of the nine singles they’ve released didn’t even hit the Top 100. Oh, and in May, the welcome signs that read “Proud to be the home of Nickelback” at the three highway entrances to the band’s Alberta hometown of Hanna were removed. (Officials said the signs had become a safety hazard as fans stopped to take photos.)

So while few people listen to, let alone buy, new Nickelback music, they can still draw a crowd, as was in evidence at the near-capacity X, which featured a general-admission pit packed with fans. They opened with last year’s “San Quentin,” Nickelback’s highest charting song in eight years. From there forward, though, it was mostly old hits, with two more fresh tunes snuck in at the end of the show.

While Kroger’s voice has always been on the gruff side — think the guy they get to do monster truck rally radio ads, but singing — it seemed rougher than usual Monday. At a tour stop in Missouri last Thursday, Kroger forced the band to stop the fourth song of the show, “Animals.” He then addressed the crowd, saying “I can’t do this. I cannot sit here with a f—— absolutely destroyed throat and try to make it through this show and pretend like there’s nothing f—— wrong and take your f—— money.”

After further expletive-littered ranting Kroger told the audience he was going to go ahead and “give it all I’ve got” and he finished the evening’s show. Perhaps that’s why guitarist Ryan Peake is singing a lot more than he used to in concert, including handling lead vocals on the relatively obscure 2001 number “Worthy to Say.” Other than that, it was Nickelback by the numbers. Eardrum-shattering explosions, pyro and a bunch of huge, often unapologetically sexist, songs with even bigger hooks.

Canadian newcomer Josh Ross (who has landed a trio of Top 20 singles over the past year in his home country) and bro country star Brantley Gilbert opened the evening and joined Nickelback for a, shall we say, ill-conceived cover version of Steve Earle’s “Copperhead Road.”

While Gilbert might seem like an odd choice for an opener, he specializes in aggressive, rock-inspired anthems and spent time last year touring with Las Vegas metal band Five Finger Death Punch. Really, Gilbert is pretty much totally metal now after his sixth album “So Help Me God” flopped on country radio, despite the presence of high-wattage guests like Toby Keith, Vince Gill and Blake Shelton.

Gilbert, who has the second amendment tattooed on his back, appeared to get in a mid-song shoving match with his guitarist John Merlino. (It could have just been playful or an act. They were surrounded by belching clouds of smoke, so who knows.) Also, if the 38-year-old continues to sing like the Cookie Monster, he may well be dealing with voice box cysts of his own.

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