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Rating: Approximately 9:15 PM.
A huge pounding heart, the twisted and distorted notes of "Iron Gland" and the screams of about 5000 people who had been waiting for too long....
Jerry plays a single chord, Mike follows him with a few bass notes while Sean hints at a mid-tempo. Yet everyone recognizes it immediately, and when Duvall starts to sing, the band finds itself in front of thousands of people who know every single word and note of "Rain When I Die", thousands of people chanting "Did she call my name? I think it's gonna rain when I die..."
It will be like this practically throughout the entire concert...
The Palalido is a terrible place with dreadful acoustics, but honestly, I couldn't have cared less. Scant scenography: never mind. Heterogeneous audience: from the metalhead to the emo girl, from the family man to the twenty-year-old who just discovered Alice in Chains yesterday, from the bank employee to the student who’s been delayed in his studies for ten years. Sold out. I wasn’t really concerned about this either. I could have been the only one present...
There was supposed to be the usual special guest, whose specialness was never quite understood. There was no special guest... Not to reiterate, but it didn’t affect me at all.
I think I can say that everyone present felt the same sense of absolute indifference to everything that was the backdrop. All it took was for them to come on stage, the AIC, to unleash a tremendous roar. Everyone visibly moved, including the band, with Cantrell smiling nervously, almost as if he didn’t expect so much warmth from the audience.
The feeling is of having witnessed the performance of a band like few others, capable of stirring emotions like no other. Everyone hopelessly enchanted and hypnotized in front of the suggestive melodies of Cantrell's guitar and the compelling rhythms of the Inez-Kinney duo. Musicians of infinite talent, consistent, humble, moving and moved, light-years away from the rock star stereotype, focused only on their Music, happy (at least apparently) to live off their Music, proud of their Music.
William Duvall. To be completely honest, I think he was exceptional. Master of the situation, he sang all the songs that indelibly carried Layne's mark incredibly and with apparent ease.
On "Love Hate Love", he literally left everyone speechless with an impressive vocal performance that no one would have expected. He holds the stage well, knows how to engage the audience, knows when to step back.
He didn’t steal the scene; he actually conquered it with humility and ability. Every hesitation was erased: he will never be Staley, they are too different from each other, but with him, Alice in Chains can continue their story.
Alice in Chains. For me, they represent much more than just a simple band. But judging by the faces, words, and gestures of the audience present, I think it was the same for everyone. At the end of the concert, I saw people with tears in their eyes, people hugging, people in a trance, people who lost their vocal cord along the way. But it was only for a fraction of a second: just enough time to go back to ignoring everything and everyone and leave with a smile on my face (and a couple of Jerry Cantrell's picks in my pocket).
Here's the concert setlist:
* Iron Gland
* Rain When I Die
* Them Bones
* Dam That River
* Again
* Your Decision
* Check My Brain
* Love, Hate, Love
* It Ain't Like That
* A Looking In View
* Down in a Hole (acoustic)
* No Excuses (acoustic)
* Black Gives Way To Blue (acoustic)
* Last of My Kind
* Angry Chair
* Acid Bubble
* We Die Young
* Man in the Box
* Lesson Learned
* Would?
* Rooster
The best piece? All of them, from the first to the last. The worst piece? It doesn’t exist. Negative note aside: the concert is over.
If you ever get the chance, go see Alice in Chains. Bring your mother, your father, your partner, and your lover together, bring the dog, the cat, and even your canary. Or don’t bring anyone: you won’t care for anything but their music.
"Here they come to snuff the rooster" and thousands of voices in unison...
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