Monster Truck had the difficult task of being the support act for Nickelback. For those of you who aren't aware of Monster Truck, they could be described as a bluesy, hard rock band hailing from Ontario in Canada.
Surprisingly, Monster Truck from the outset captivated the audience right until their dying notes of their last song. The band opened with 'She's A Witch' taken from their recent album 'Sittin' Heavy'. Instantly the riff and vocals captured the crowds attention and got them singing and swaying along to some good old fashioned rock music.
Monster Truck write songs that are melodic and interspersed with laser precision guitar solos, which create an all-out assault on the senses. Guitarist Jeremy Widerman reminds me of a young Angus Young with the way he runs wildly from side to side of the stage and jumps around like a possessed billiard ball. In stark contrast to the vocalist and bassist Jon Harvey who stays quite static throughout the show.
Obviously Monster Truck were promoting their latest album 'Sittin' Heavy', so as you would expect the setlist contained material from that album, but to be fair to the band it was a well-balanced setlist with a good mixture of new and old tracks from their earlier album 'Furiosity' as well as a 'Righteous Smoke' from their relatively unknown release- 'The Brown EP'.
This was one of those rare occasions where the support band were an absolute pleasure to watch, and to captivate an audience when majority of the crowd have never heard of you is a difficult thing to do. However, if this is what Monster Truck can do when they are still new comers to Britain, then who knows how immense they can become in a live setting in front of an audience that know their material.
Not only are the band members extremely talented, their sound mixing was of top quality, even though a lot of their songs include squealy guitar riffs, the vocals were clear and crisp whilst the squealy guitar parts were belted out.
Their 45-minute set whizzed by, and before we knew it, the band were playing their final song 'The Lion', leaving the crowd at Sheffield Arena under no illusion that Monster Truck could be one of those bands that might just have a good chance of lots of success and more importantly longevity.
Usually I would discuss my personal highlight, however there wasn't one highlight as the entire set was a genuine highlight for me, this is rock music played how it should be played with passion and fury. Monster Truck have set the bar high for playing live. It will be incredible to catch them on their own headlining tour when they come back.
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.