A little late but here is my Daughtry recap.

This past Sunday I ventured out into my first of three concert experiences I will have this month. First up was Daughtry who played at a small club close to my house. I had always wanted to see one of his shows and with a fortunate stop on their warm up club tour sounded perfect to me. I also decided to go for the whole experience and bought a VIP ticket which allowed me to go to soundcheck and a meet & greet.

I arrived at the Gothic Theater right at 4:30 and joined a small line to the left of the doors after receiving my ticket and had my name crossed off the “list”. There was already a larger line forming to the right of the doors and probably had a good 30 or 40 people in it. After a while the boss man came out and told us the order of events of the day and mentioned that Chris wasn’t feeling well and may not sing at soundcheck. After that we received our VIP passes and waited some more. I took the time to assess the crowd and noticed a group similar to David’s audiences, a lot of women of various ages, some couples and a few younger guys. I’d still say the ladies dominated and the ratio was about 65/35 in favor of them.

After a total wait of about an hour we started to hear the beginning of soundcheck and were escorted inside the building. There were only about 40 of us VIP ticktholders so we were all about to fill in right in front of the stage. Chris waved at us and said hello. It was so surreal due to the lack of a buffer and Chris had to keep saying things to engage us because everyone was just quietly watching. The band ended up performing three full songs and Chris sang partially on all of them. He asked everyone to sing the words for him. It was fun watching them tweak sound levels and making sure everything was just right. Chris took a video of us watching soundcheck on his iphone but later tweeted that he accidentally deleted it. I ended up in the back about 3 rows of people deep but that turned out to be an advantage because when boss man lead us to the lobby to line up for the meet & greet I was one of the first ones in line.

While in line boss man let us know that we would be going up the stairs and through one at a time since the room was pretty small and I was happy to hear it was set up that way. I knew the meet & greet would be short based on everyone’s recaps of how they tend to go so I didn’t have anything prepared to ask or say. It is surreal walking up to the band all standing there waiting for you to approach them. Chris held out his arms for a hug immediately and that made me feel less nervous. I just ended up thanking them for coming to Denver and that it was my first show. We took a quick group photo and I wished them a great show. My parting gift was a group signed poster and off I went back out into the lobby. I felt like it went great for my first meet & greet experience, the guys were all very nice and nobody hurried me along plus it was nice to have the meeting be in private without all the other fans looking on.

After the meet & greet I had the realization that those who finished with that first got to go outside back in line first. After counting the 2 people in the VIP line back outside it dawned on me that I was going to get a damn good spot at the show. A couple people who were with the original two ladies joined and I became officially 6th in line. We had about an hour wait before the doors opened at 7pm so I took the time to chat with some of the ladies in line. One of them actually approached me first and said that she saw me at the David Cook show to which I had to reply which one. She said the one in Colorado and I again had to ask her to refresh my memory. Turns out she had stood next to me in Beaver Creek and watched me completely fangirl over being front row right center in front of Ryan Star, oh my. It seems like most of the people in VIP were big fans of Daughtry and had seen him multiple times. I felt a little bit different since I am not one of those kinds of fans but completely understood and knew the invested fan language since I was on loan from David Cook fandom and even mentioned that a few times with great enthusiasm from others about David. What surprised me most about the crowd around me is that I talked to a group of ladies who started following Daughtry because of the Bon Jovi tour, some of them were huge Bon Jovi fanatics. One of the women in line had mentioned this would be her 27th time seeing Daughtry and I had the impression this was quite the high mark within their fandom, most of the others had been to about 4 shows previously. I didn’t see any signs in the crowd but one homemade Tshirt that subtly said “Chris Rocks” and a few of the VIPs had brought gifts that they had given the band during meet & greet. Before the doors opened the regular line had grown considerably and was at least a couple hundred deep down the block. The buses were parked to the left of the venue and shared the lot with the paid parking customers. Right before the doors opened the bass player JP came out from the bus and stopped to take pictures with some fans, which was met with several shrieks and fans running down for a quick peek.

Right at 7 sharp the doors opened and I ended up with a ticket that was slow to scan so I didn’t get quite the jump into the venue that I had anticipated. Still I made my way as quick as possible to the floor and saw only about the first row taken up. I saw an opening a couple spots off center and squeezed in there. There was a gate up and a 3 foot or so buffer between that and the stage. It made sense that they put the gate up because the opener David Hodges and his band took up every spare inch of the stage as they had plugs and wires going everywhere and almost hanging off of the stage. David Hodges’ keyboard was right in front of me and the drums were set off to the left side. I took the chance in the hour wait until the show started to take in the venue and pay attention to the crowd. The Gothic Theater was almost exactly like the Odgen Theater that David had played it. They both are old converted movie theaters so the stage is narrow but the venue is pretty deep. They both have interesting balconies in a horseshoe shape where the back is quite elevated and far back but plenty of room for stool seating on the sides that extend all the way up toward the stage. I was in the rear part of the balcony for David’s show and this time being right up front on the floor for Daughtry was a completely different view and experience. The crowd filled in quickly and I noticed the ratio of men increasing but it was all ladies up at front. Ironically the lone man was next to me on the right with his girlfriend. The preshow music kept everyone’s energy up and the crowd was definitely ready to party. A lot of hair bands and 80s rock dominated the preshow music. The crowd gave a huge response to a Bon Jovi song that was played and also sang along loudly to “Don’t Stop Believin’’.

I very much enjoyed the opener David Hodges. He has a kind of piano rock sound with him at the keyboards and 2 guys on guitar and bass and a drummer. Their first song “The Rising” was an all instrumental, which was a cool surprise. I thought the band did great for an opener and the crowd gave them a great response for what I’ve heard from an opener and David even kept saying it was amazing to hear that much noise for a piano rock band. He mentioned Denver is the birth place of the Fray so maybe that had something to do with it. I bought the EP when I got home and enjoy their sound.

There was about a half hour break between sets and I’m always fascinated watching the change over between sets and the stage set up for the main act. The lighting setup was much simpler than what I am used to from David’s stage set up. There were only the standard colored spotlights at the top and a few laser lights on the stage itself. I thought they did a cool entrance with the laser lights but didn’t notice them much after that. There were two large stacks of amps on either side of the drum riser and that created sort of a backstage area on the stage. Two large lockers of guitars were placed in this “backstage” area and the band frequently went back to change out their guitars, I think they all changed guitars several times and Chris had a different guitar almost every time. Another interesting difference is that the bass player was positioned between Chris and the guitarist so that all 4 guys (minus the drummer of course) were positioned at the front of the stage. I ended up being right in front of the bass player so I had fun watching him and the other guys playing.

As far as the show, it lasted 75 minutes and they played 15 songs. I had copied down the setlist from a previous show and they stuck to the same list except for the position of the encore songs switched and they ended with the heavier and one of my favorites “You don’t Belong” instead of “Home”. They played songs from both albums and it was split almost perfectly 50/50. The only hit from the “Daughtry” album that they did not play was “What About Now” which was kind of a surprise since that was the last single from the album and still gets good radio play. The shows seemed a good length but moved along quickly as there was little break between the songs. Chris was friendly and engaging but kept the banter to mostly getting cheers from the back of the crowd or asking how everyone was doing. I did like when he asked everyone to jump for a certain song and that got the crowd really moving. Chris would lean out over the stage and tried to reach the crowd on the other side of the gate buffer several times and stood out on the very edge of the stage to touch the outstretched hands from the audience. Once the show was over Chris jumped down into the pit between the stage and gate as he ran back and forth touching hands of everyone in the front row. I didn’t see any signs or people really shouting at the band other than the usual “I love you”. One woman in the front row handed Chris a CD to sign in the middle of a song and he handed it back to her quickly, turns out it was the woman who was on show #27. One thing that surprised me is that Chris only played guitar on a handful of songs, probably less than half. He did walk around the stage a lot and interacted with all the band members at one point. Overall I really enjoyed the show. I got to hear a lot of songs I like and a few that are some favorites of mine. I thought Chris sounded strong and I would never have known he was sick, the band was very professional and tight and the songs sounded a lot like what they did on the album with the exception of “Feels like Tonight” which I felt came across heavier than on the album. The crowd was great and really seemed into the show and I absolutely could not complain having the most amazing spot for a show I could imagine.

After the show I quickly left the theater because I wanted to meet David Hodges and his band and tell them I enjoyed their set. I also had another reason for wanting to meet them because I wanted to let David Hodges know how much I enjoy the song “My Last Request” which of course he wrote with David Cook. I did get the chance to let him know this and he gave me a big smile and said “nicely played” and thanked me. I’m glad I was able to make that connection. At this point my adventure was pretty much over and had all that I could ever ask for and then some. As I walked down the street away from the theater I could hear some shrieks and a lot of camera flashes and noticed that the band had come out to do some signing at the bus. I was surprised because it was not even 30 minutes after the show ended. I’m not sure if the entire band or Chris was out because he still was under the weather. I decided not to join because I needed to head home and already had my meet and greet experience. All in all I’m very glad I went and was happy I spent the extra money on the VIP experience because it was fun and I never had done anything like that before. I’d recommend anyone to see Daughtry if they have the chance and enjoy their music.

Here are a couple videos I took, sound isn't fantastic but I think they turned out well. Hopefully I'll figure flickr out and get a few photos up soon.

Breakdown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE5SSklP7Z8
Supernatural: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM8llSOwKDM