Godsmack at The Rave with special guests, Losing Scarlet and No Conviction
As Godsmack ended their latest tour until July, they gave the fans a special night to remember. Just playing a fest the night before, Sully Erna and getting ready for his Solo tour the next day, right back at The Rave, you would think that maybe he will rest his voice up? No, you thought wrong.
With a sold out crowd of over 4,000 and not having played the Rave since 2003, the crowd was into it. A black curtain was hiding the stage and what seemed like Alter Bridge’s new album was being played as the setup was happening.
With the music of Alter Bridge over and AC/DC playing, the lights dimmed and behind the curtain you heared the drums playing. Along with each hit getting louder, as the curtain was ripped away, out came Robbie Merril on Bass, Tony Rombola on lead guitar, Shannon Larkin pounding away on the drums, and lastly, Sully Erna on vox/guitar. They ripped into “Awake,” followed by “War and Peace” of their latest album, The Oracle and The Enemy.
Erna has this image about him that just screams “badass” and he plays the role very well, along with the rest of the band coming out and just tearing the songs apart. As bad magic started, Rombola played into a talk box, giving the song an even more wicked sound then it already is. Rombola is not one of those show-off guitar players and just gives you the goods and no filler.
Several times, the guys went up to Larkin, and you were able to see them talking and messing with him to throw him off, but they could not throw him off of his mad playing. A few times, they threw his sticks up in the air to just catch them at the same time he slammed on the drum head.
Merril, with his skull cap on, played with a bounce to his step and several times, he interacted with the crowd - at one point, coming to me to throw up the devil horns.
Godsmack is one of those bands that just keep producing hits after hits with three #1 albums in a row and huge fanbase following.
They continued with “Speak,” “Voodoo,” and “Cryin like a Bitch.”
At one point Erna even broke into a little hip-hop with Rapper’s Delight. This had the crowd laughing.
Another highlight came when they played, Whatever and stopped halfway through to pass out beers to the crowd; making them chug it down after he carded them. As the song ended, they had everyone scream as loud as they could at the last part of the song and when it ended, he told the Milwaukee crowd that they were, for sure, the loudest crowd on the tour.
The ended the night with Stand Alone, proving that Godsmack do stand alone when it comes to providing an amazing night of hard rock.
All Photos by Peter Lizano