STONE SOUR Performs For Packed Anaheim Crowd

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

My rating:

February 15th 2011, House Of Blues, Anaheim CA: The House Of Blues in Downtown Disney was chock-a-block full with people as they awaited the arrival of Corey Taylor-led Iowa metal outfit Stone Sour. As the clock struck 9, the band appeared among raucous applause from this highly anticipative crowd and kick started their set with "Mission Statement". They were sounding heavy to start out with, and when combined with the effect of the strobe lights, it created quite a rocking atmosphere.

They continued playing a good selection of tunes from their latest album "Audio Secrecy" as well as stuff off of the first two albums, but the set was constantly interrupted by Corey Taylor's lengthy monologues with the audience. I can't speak for the fans in attendance, but this is something that didn't quite sit right with me and I felt that it was hugely overdone. I mean, there's a certain percentage to which the talking should be kept down to, and the focus should be on playing music. If I really wanted to see stand-up comedy, I would go to a stand-up comedy show, not a metal gig. May be I'm looking into it too much, but it really did bother me, otherwise I wouldn't have brought it up in this review. They have some really good music, and for me it would be best if they concentrated on presenting that to their paying fans.

"We are perhaps the last bastion of musicians that care for a fan base", said Taylor in one of his monologues. Now, this was probably something he said at every show of the tour, but tonight I thought it wasn't the best time to say it, as the band had just cancelled their San Diego show scheduled for the next night, in order to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I am not judging Stone Sour at all, but I was talking to a couple of folks who had to travel from San Diego to see this show as a result of that cancellation, and they were in total disagreement with Taylor's statement. I just felt like I should point this out, that's all. Other than this, the super long introduction of the band and purposely stopping and starting over songs also got a bit old after a certain point.

Coming back to the music which was the positive aspect of the show, even though the set was short in terms of actual playing duration, the fans would have been pleased to see tunes like "Blotter" in the set, and as always, "Made Of Scars" was fun. Corey is undeniably one of the best vocalists to have emerged in recent years of rock music history, and was well aided by Jim Root and Josh Rand on guitars, Shawn Economaki on the bass, and Roy Mayorga on drums.

I saw them on the Uproar tour last year where they were third on the bill, and I actually felt that was a better performance than this one as the shorter set time was used primarily for one thing, playing music. But as far as their headline show goes, I expect a lot better from them next time they do a show of their own, and I hope they decide to play more music in the given set time, to give more value in return for the paying fans' money.

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