Godsmack / Rob Zombie / Shinedown

Last night I saw these three groups in concert, it was a great show.

Shinedown opened. They surprised me, not just because they do a few songs that I really like (I had no idea all three were from the same band), but because the lead singer likes to talk between songs. Sometimes he goes on for minutes at end, but it's interesting.

Rob Zombie is who I really came to see. He was good, played a bunch of his hits and had quite a spectacle going on onstage (lights, fire, video). One of his new songs, American Witch I think, had an animated movie about a nude witch who's hypnotizing all these zombies and werewolves, so she can take on this 50' mummy lord. Most of his songs features zombies, the undead, or horror movies in some form. For More Human Than Human he showed clips from those old Japanese giant-man-fighting-giant-monster films (Jet Jaguar?), plus had a giant robot ala the back cover of Hellbilly Deluxe terrorizing the stage. Another song featured clips from anime tentacle films (you know, such great cinimatic classics as Legend of the Overfiend). Yet another song had videos of nothing more remarkable than nude women jumping and running around, so all was right in the world again.

But Godsmack really took the cake. In retrospect, it's obvious to see that Shinedown are still cutting their teeth, Rob Zombie may be a bit worn and past his peak, while Godsmack is at their prime. They rocked the house over and over again, even when things slowed down a bit. And the lead singer is uber talented, he can sing (obviously), play guitar (no real surprise), play the harmonica (unexpected, but not unprecedented), and at one point he got on a second drum set and duelled/soloed with the main drummer!