“This is the rock show of 2025, wouldn’t you agree? Let’s turn it up.” Brent Smith’s suave smile lit up as the crowd roared. Shinedown’s Madison Square Garden debut was a long overdue opportunity to bask in the glory of their hard-earned success.
Love them or hate them or find them generic, no one can deny that Shinedown is one of those bands that worked hard for their staying power. There are kids graduating college who are younger than Shinedown. A quick metric of shows listed on setlist.com shows them performing around 1850 shows since 2002. 400 of those shows come from a whopping non-stop 24 month tour stint between 2003 and 2004, building Shinedown’s reputation as a killer band to see live.
Maybe this is why, even in a time when concert sales are down, people are still willing to shell out the big bucks to see them play. They’ve always had a few “radio friendly” rock songs that pull back on the grungy sound and replace it with orchestral overlays, moving beats, and anthemic vocals (think Unity, Three Six Five, Get Up). The popularity of their 2023 pop remix of A Symptom of Being Human with its soulful acoustic guitar and syncopated electronic beats is probably part of why they were able to sell out so quickly and propel themselves towards being a household name.
This was a showcase of a perfected art form; everything was honed, crisp. Not a beat was wasted. The dazzling display of pyrotechnics, the cathartic–but not cheesy–crowdwork, and the titillating tension of the transitions. Their perfected strengths did not stop Shinedown from experimenting with attention, from the limited cinematic emphasis and their surprisingly lengthy “acoustic” set.
The dazzling display of pyrotechnics, the cathartic–but not cheesy–crowdwork, and the titillating tension of the transitions.
The one exception to this relatively stripped-down show was the pyrotechnics, a constant in Shinedown’s shows. I’ve been going to Shinedown shows with my mom for over a decade now, but the first one I remember vividly was the Ford Ampitheater on Coney Island back in 2016. The sun was still setting by the time the show started, which did not make the pyrotechnics any less impressive. I’m not sure if this is where my pyrophilia began, but it was the first time I had seen flames associated with the music itself.
I don’t remember much else of the Coney Island concert, but I do remember it’s the first time I ever cried to a song in front of my mother. Oh, sure, it’s cliche! On the verge of the most politically complex time of our generation, in the midst of the most awkward time of my fledgling adulthood, with all the fear and tension and pain of my own little teenage life behind me and so much more ahead, I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect moment for Brent Smith to croon at me that “I’m not gonna leave you behind/If I told you that you’re not alone/And I showed you this is where you belong”. Lighters and hands in the air, tears in my eyes, the sunset throwing a golden purple over everyone, and sparkles raining down on stage.
Selling out Madison Square Garden as a rock-forward act that doesn’t have the luxury of relying on pure nostalgia is an accomplishment in and of itself. That being said, it’s clear Shinedown is not immune to the nostalgic allure of our current Y2K cultural renaissance. There were moments that worked, like the surprisingly accurate terminal startup visual overlaid on the camera feed of bassist Eric Bass during Planet Zero. I can’t quite put my finger on why the quick lightsaber bit between Brent Smith and Zach Myers failed to make me smile— maybe because it was less than 30 seconds and it felt like a contrived Y2K reference that about 5 other rock bands have made this summer.
I forgive Shinedown for the lame Star Wars reference because I think they pulled the ultimate move in the Y2K renaissance by stripping it back down. Previous Shinedown shows included increasingly complex and stunning computer-generated visualizations hypnotizing the audience. This performance employed a more grounded approach of live feeds overlaid or framed with a graphic, requiring the audience to watch fractured images of the band. The acoustic set—with nothing but simple warm lighting bathing the auxiliary stage—was surprisingly lengthy. It was a game, a little test to see just how much of our undivided attention an iconic artist can still demand with nothing but a few instruments. The audience soaked it up until the very end. Maybe, if the music and players are inviting enough, we won’t need to have a stream of Subway Surfers on a second screen in order to pay ATTENTION.