Sorry for the separate thread, but this one could have gone into either "What Have You been Listening To Lately" or "What Have You Been Watching Lately," so I said to heck with it and put it here, all by its little lonesome.

Shinedown is in town for a show Saturday night at Pipeline Café being sponsored by Star 101.9, one of the Clear Channel sister stations to the one my wife works for -- Clear Channel here has a facility called the Raodrunner Music Hall, an intimate venue which seats about 50 people. They had three of the four members of Shinedown: Eric Bass (bassist, and yes, that's his real name), Brent Smith (vocas) and Zach Myers (guitars) in for a short, three-song acoustic set this afternoon and the Mrs. and I got to go. We were allowed to take still pictures (no video, and no flash for stills), so I took this opportunity to break out my new Canon 17-40mm f4L-series lens and take some pictures. I shot aperature priority, wide open at f4, and at a mix of ISO 400 and 800 (I did shoot a few with the 70-200mm f4L-series, but only a few). You can see them on my Facebook page here: Shinedown at the Roadrunner Music Hall.

I'm attaching one "teaser" shot to pique your interest (or maybe not).

Click to view attachment

The three songs they did were "The Sound of Madness," "If You Only Knew" and "Second Chance." Brent Smith, the lead singer, talked about how's he's been clean and sober since becoming a father, and dedicated "If You Only Knew" to his son.

I've always felt a good measure of a rock band is how they sound acoustically - if they can still sound tight and their vocals are there in an unplugged set, then you know amplification's only likely to make that even better. These guys were tight. Their guitar work was excellent, and their harmonies were superb.

I don't know if we'll be able to go tomorrow night to the full show, but I do know they won't allow me to take my camera, so if any of you are fans of theirs, this is my one chance to share a little something of them with you.

If you like them acoustic, Giac, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgFQ6WmxdMs

(embedding is turned off, hence the link)

That's the song that got me to really pay attention to Shinedown.

Wow. That's one of the best versions of that song I've heard, and it goes right back to what I said about acoustic ability being a hallmark of a good band.

I started listening to Shinedown because my wife really likes them (that's happened a lot with us over the years we've been together -- now if I could only get her into jazz....) But I keep listening to them because I'm impressed with them. Yep, I'm a fan.