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Collective Soul picks up where the '90s left them.
by Ivan Alzuro
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After what seems to have been a monsoon these last few days it turned out to be the perfect Tuesday evening for a concert with Collective Soul with The Whitest Light and Josh Kelly at The National.
More than just a '90's band with a string of hits connected to their grunge roots, Collective Soul exploded out of their hometown of Stockbridge, Ga. onto the national consciousness with 1994's double-platinum "Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid." Legal issues ensued between their manager and the band that seemed to have taken the life out of the band, as success did not come so easy after the mid-'90s. Tuesday night in front of a crowd of more than 900, Collective Soul showed they may well be on their way back to the top with a performance loaded with energy.
They revived hits such as "The World I Know," "Better Now," "Heavy" and "December." While frontman and songwriter Ed Roland took us back to 1994 with "Listen," the band also tore into its new LP "Afterwards" with former guitar-tech-now-lead-guitarist Joel Kosche singing. Roland, sporting those Sammy Haggar locks, was the only one making a connection with the audience, though. Dean Roland, Soul's rhythm guitarist and Ed's brother, was crushing out the rifts and keeping tempo to the point he really didn't address the audience, and the audience was more than ready to connect with each of the members.
Towards the end of the hour-and-20-minute set the band played another hit from their "Afterwards LP," "Hollywood," in which Ed whipped out his guitar rendition of AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" and "Thunderstruck." Hey kids, if you're gonna do Angus Young right, you've got to throw in the sideways leg kick and stutter shuffle -- and he did, taking the crowd back to yet another musical era that never really ended.
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