Skillet

Coronado Performing Arts Center

Rockford Illinois

April 1, 2008 

April Fools’ Day, and the joke was on me for reading the internet directions down to Rockford too literally. The occasion was the Skillet concert at the Coronado Performing Arts Center that night, at which they were support by Decyfer Down and Thousand Foot Krutch. As the latter has had a couple of songs leak onto the local hard rock station in Madison, I was looking forward to checking them out. Unfortunately, the bad directions put an end to that idea, as my girlfriend and I got to the venue after the support acts had concluded their sets.

Walking into the Coronado, it felt like we were transported into a Tim Burton fantasy come to life.  The place was at once beautiful and overwrought, what with a portion of the lobby featuring wall to ceiling mirrors, another section adorned in baroque wall carvings. The concert space itself was rather beautiful, decked out in a generally red theme, with dragon murals gracefully curving up the wall near the stage. A helpful usher related the theater’s 1927 origins, and recent renovations, which took pains to leave the décor intact.

As we waited for the headliner to come on, I felt really old, looking around at the decidedly teenager dominated crowd. The friendly usher had explained that this night’s show was open to all ages, the right decision for the band given the makeup of the audience. This would be my third time seeing Skillet in the space of a year and a half, in wildly differing circumstances. The first time, they played an arena show opening for Christian rock stars, Audio Adrenaline, with an audience that had kids in it, but skewing decidedly older. My second time seeing Skillet was in a small club, a 18-and-up show, where I stood within ten feet of a low stage. Here, it was a theater filled with youngsters, a thoroughly different atmosphere than the previous experiences. But to a good, professional band, the location and circumstances shouldn’t matter, and it certainly did not this night.

The front section of seats was pretty well filled with kids, although there was plenty of room under the balcony. Didn’t really matter, though, hardly anyone was actually using their seat all night, save for the few bored parents patiently waiting for their kids’ concert to be over with. The audience was certainly enthusiastic, and into the set, and sang mightily along, filling the high ceilings of the Coronado. They were in for an even bigger thrill as the band set off smoke cannons at the beginning to Whispers in the Dark, my pick for the best song from the Comatose album. Afterwards, John Cooper interacted with the crowd for the first time, saying, “I’m not going to talk. I’m going to keep my mouth shut and play some rock and roll songs.” He’d prove himself a liar though, talking with the audience between pretty much every song thereafter. They didn’t care, though; Cooper had them eating from his hand.

The cellist was back for the third song, this time bathed in a red/yellow/purple color scheme of lights for the title track to 2004’s Collide. He fit the dress code for the night just fine, wearing a black suit to go with his black instrument. As he was featured largely during the intros to the songs, you could hear him just fine, as you could certainly hear the guitars all night. From where we were standing, though, the bass was slightly low in the mix, a curiosity for a couple of reasons. For one, John Cooper was the frontman for the band. In addition, we were standing level with the soundbooth, and if we couldn’t hear the bass well, they were likely hearing the same thing.

As the band launched into a trio of tracks from Comatose, the fancy clothes had given way to the realities of hot stage lights. Kasica, at least, kept his vest, but Cooper had reverted to his usual, sweat-drenched t-shirt as he pounded away at his 5-string bass. The Older I Get, was followed by the band’s current hit single, Last Night, and the anthemic, Better Than Drugs.

I took the photo pass I was supplied and wandered around a bit during this section of the show, trying to get a few decent pictures of the band in action. A few of these are up in the Music-reviewer.com gallery. As with the first time I saw Skillet, the aisles were clogged with the youngsters. Unlike that time, though, there was no effort by the Coronado staff to clear the aisles, so I wasn’t able to get down right to the front. I was able to snap a few decent pics from the edge of the stage, though I had more than a few shots spoiled by fist pumping kids.

The band stepped back into their catalogue at this point to perform, These Nights, during which Cooper relinquished his bass to his “big huge tall friend, Caleb,” (from opener Decyfer Down), so as to concentrate on singing. He extended the mike to some of the kids up front to deliver a couple of lines, and they acquitted themselves pretty well, nailing the words and the melody both. 

The next song was preceded by a commercial interruption, as Cooper called for the crowd to take their cell phones out, and text a number to Panhead, their fanclub name (I think) to join the mobile mob. When they were done, he quipped, “Please keep your cell phones out, and we can pretend that it’s 1985 and I’m Bon Jovi,” while introducing the ballad, Yours to Hold. The night’s most amusing moment came when drummer Ledger stepped out from behind her kit to help sing the intro. She had a decent voice, but I think she totally biffed the timing to her last line, and gave a disgusted little shrug before wandering away and resuming her station. Keeping the night moving along, the band followed up with the explosive, Rebirthing. This song prominently features the backing vocals of Korey Cooper, and though she sounds great on CDs, her voice can get away from her in the live setting on occasion. This night, Rebirthing wasn’t her strong vocal suite.

The set continued with Angels Fall Down, a worship song during which I shot the raised arm shot of Cooper, my favorite of the pictures from that night. Korey Cooper provided the initial lead with a simple piano melody that eventually gave way to her and Kasica’s guitars. Again following their pattern of following up the softer songs with more energetic cuts, Skillet launched into Savior, which had the cellist on his feet, sawing away at his instrument throughout the whole song. Savior might be the heaviest song Skillet has in their catalogue, and they did it proud this night, all three guitarists banging their heads to a roar of approval from the crowd, confetti cannons exploding as the band came to a frenzied close.

The audience, of course, hadn’t quite been satiated, and when Cooper came out a few minutes later with a quizzical, “Are you sure?” they certainly let him know about it. He reciprocated, as the rest of the band filed back onto stage, with a tale of how Skillet, a Christian band playing music with crossover appeal, would be approached by fellow musicians on tours sidling up to him and asking, in hushed whispers, if it was true. “If what was true?” “That you’re a Christian band?” This he affirmed to renewed roars from the crowd. Oddly, he felt it necessary to put in a disclaimer that Skillet wasn’t playing music just for Christians, making me think the band has probably come under some fire for their beliefs. In any case, after welcoming the atheists among the crowd, Skillet ended their night with, “Best kept Secret,” rewarding their long time fans with an old favorite.

This night probably ranked second among my Skillet experiences, not for any fault of theirs, but for the fact that little beats being able to see a good band at the height of their game up close and personal, as this show review was the case at the Annex last spring.  This show had its own merits to recommend, not least of which was the youthful energy generated by the crowd. The audience was hyped up, and hyper throughout the show, and the band ate it up and gave equally of themselves. I’m looking forward to catching them again, in a 4th completely different environment, when they play again at Milwaukee’s Summerfest this July.