April 13, 2001 - Cleveland, OH – Godsmack, Staind, Cold, Systematic

Venue: CSU Convocation Center

My first concert!

I was mere months away from graduating High School and I was genuinely excited to see Godsmack with my good friend Bob and our friend Adam.

I was 18 and my musical tastes were still developing.  As a teenager, I was incredibly slow to develop a real opinion on music and up to this point, it really wasn't a big part of my life.  I remember I could safely say that I loved Led Zeppelin, Alice In Chains, Queen, and a few other metal or classic rock acts, but I wasn't really heavily into anything.  Godsmack was new and on the radio constantly and I owned the second of the two albums that they had released up to this point.

The way I recall it, Bob asked me to go, we got him the money, he bought us tickets, and he drove us all up to the show.  We sat at the very back of the 'U',  at almost the furthest point from the stage, but only 10 or so rows from the floor.  The seats weren't bad.

As for the openers, I thought Systematic was good enough that I purchased their CD a few days after the show at Best Buy.  The bigger deal was Staind; a band that was just as big, in a lot of ways, as Godsmack was.  I was not excited to see Staind, and I was sick of their radio singles, but I wasn't offended by their performance.  They have a song called Mudshovel that I remember liking live.

Writing about it 15 years later, it is mostly a hazy mess of images and sounds.  Aaron Lewis sat down with an acoustic guitar and played 'Outside', and Godsmack put on a pretty good show.  They closed with 'Voodoo'.

I bought a Godsmack t-shirt at the show and proudly wore it to school once or twice.  One too many people asked me about it and I got embarrassed and I never really wore it again.

Am I embarrassed by my first concert now?

Not at all. 

And while I wasn't blown away by the experience, it acted as that first spark that ignited my love for live shows, so for that I am forever grateful.