Away From The Sun and Into The Night
Away From The Sun and Into The Night
Wednesday, September 13th was the night that Three Doors Down brought their highly anticipated Away From The Sun 20th Anniversary Tour to Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida, and it was truly a night to remember! Supporting them was the equally fantastic Candlebox, with their special surprise guest for one of only three shows with the band on this tour, co-founding member Peter Klett on guitar, who was also the co-writer of their classic 90s hits along with vocalist Kevin Martin. Candlebox stormed the stage at almost 7:30 on the dot and from the opening strains of “Don’t You” to their encore of “You” eleven songs later, the old chemistry between Klett and Martin was there, palpable and immediate, as if they’d never stopped playing together! Kevin Martin has lost absolutely nothing after leading Candlebox for the past thirty years, his voice remains just as powerful and record perfect as ever. The band had the packed and passionate Jacksonville crowd in the palm of their hand from beginning to end, and that crowd showed their appreciation by singing loudly and often along with them during classics such as “Change”, “Arrow”, “Mothers Dream” and the phenomenal “Cover Me” before finishing with their two biggest hits, “Far Behind” and the aforementioned and iconic “You” as their encore, featuring a particularly blistering and glorious guitar solo by Peter Klett. It was a spectacular performance from what I consider to be one of the most underrated and under-appreciated bands of the 90s, and it was a performance that would be very tough to follow!
Fortunately for everyone in attendance, Escatawpa Mississippi’s own Three Doors Down proved to be more than up for the challenge, hitting the stage just after 9pm, and from the very second the lights went up, it was evident that the raucous Duval crowd was there to rock and to sing with the band for basically every song of their hit-laden 18-song set! They opened with what was a bonus track on the Japanese release of “Away From The Sun”, the heavily-grooving “Pop Song”, which got the crowd worked up into a fine lather just in time for the band to launch into their mega-hit “When I’m Gone”, which was when the audience left no doubt that they were going to be an integral part of the performance for the remainder of the evening, featuring a succession of one huge hit after another! Their blistering set then proceeded on with the title track from their sophomore release, the album this tour celebrated and featured in its entirety - “Away From The Sun”, then continued with bangers such as “The Road I’m On”, “Let Me Go”, “Here Without You” (the crowd was in particularly fine and enthusiastic voice on this one!), “It’s Not My Time”, “Be Like That” (another singalong favorite of the audience), a personal favorite of mine – “Duck And Run” and the massive hit “Loser” before culminating in the two-song encore of “Landing In London” and their grand finale, barn-burner mega-hit “Kryptonite”, finally leaving the stage to the gloriously loud and still-energetic roar of the rowdy Jacksonville crowd who were lucky enough to catch this very special and potent double-bill of two of the best American rock and roll bands of the past 30 years!
Shane Handke
GetAMPED Magazine
North Florida