SnoCore Tour; Army of Anyone, HURT, Dropping Daylight 01/22/2007

Sunday January 22, 2007

Ridglea Theatre

Fort Worth, TX

SnoCore ‘07, 3rd show

Dropping Daylight, HURT, Army of Anyone
Review by Micah Hargrave

At 5:45 pm, I was the second person to the door. Soon after, the line took form. We stood under a clear sky in temperatures around the freezing point, but our tickets said the doors would open at 6:30, and if the previous night in Austin was any indication of what was to come, the cold air mattered not. When, at 6:31, the doors were still closed, we were frustrated, but understood that a lot goes into a rock concert. The lady inside was entitled to an extra minute or two to finish her smoke. At 6:59, the old red-headed witch with a cigarette hanging from her lips, was still perched on her stool behind a cash register. The line had reached the road and we were all shaking, because we are Texans, and Texans can only tolerate anything below 40 degrees for so long before ice forms on our skin. About the time I could no longer feel my hands, and the local rock radio station had hung their final banner, the doors opened for us to walk two feet inside, to show I.D. and tickets. This single location was also where you could buy tickets if need be. It turns out that there were a lot of people that needed tickets. The line was still at the road, and it wasn’t getting any warmer.

Once inside, we found Paul Spatola and Josh Ansley from HURT for a brief chat. Josh said he hoped we wouldn’t mind hearing the same set lists as the night before. In fact, I was counting on the same set lists. It would have been nice to hear HURT play “Unkind” at one of the shows, but I couldn’t complain. The stage was small – really small – and the guard rails were farther away than at any other concert I’d been to, but The Ridglea had a giant screen as a backdrop, which looked promising.

Dropping Daylight, again, played an excellent show. In fact, their performance in Fort Worth was even better than the one in Austin. Of course, it helps to have a crowd full of young screaming fans.

I deduced, from the talk of the crowd, that there were more people at the Ridglea that night for HURT only, than for anyone else. HURT always takes the stage with a commanding presence, and Fort Worth was no exception. Throughout their set, I felt more energy from HURT than any other time I’d seen them. They were “packed like sardines,” as Josh Ansley put it, but their sound was, yet again, phenomenal. HURT uses projected video imagery during some of their songs. That giant screen at the back of the stage did, in fact, prove to be useful. Their last song was one of their new ones – the same one I’d heard in Austin that I couldn’t get enough of. The song is called, “10 Ton Brick,” and it takes HURT to a whole other level of rock and roll. J. Loren needed more space to sing that one than the stage allowed, so he ended up at the back of the theatre, giving a performance like none I’d seen before. Before the song ended, Loren made his way to the front, where two fans were having the time of their lives in their own little mosh pit. In the five HURT shows I’ve seen, two included a mosh pit. One, the Fort Worth show, included J. Loren, himself, as a part of a mosh pit. After their set, I heard numerous people say, “I could leave now and be happy.”

Army of Anyone sounded just as well as they did on the previous night in Austin, never faltering. We watched their performance in Fort Worth from the back of the theatre, which was, I learned, the best place to be. Richard Patrick’s shadows on the side walls made for a cool effect from where there, and the sound was amazing.

Sadly, it was getting late, and halfway through AoA’s set we had to leave. I had to be at my day job at 6:30 the next morning and I was 150 miles from home. On the way to the car, I looked at my wife and said, “Nickelback used to be the best concert I’ve seen. Not anymore.”