Listen, I love severe storms as much as the next born-and-raised Wisconsinite. However, when I am trying to enjoy some of my favorite bands on an outdoor stage I enjoy it best when mother nature cools her jets for those few hours.
This past Saturday (July 23), EPIC Event Center was scheduled to host Green Bay’s first big outdoor concert at Capital Credit Union Park, home of the Green Bay Rockers. The show would feature ZERO 9:36, Wage War, and Three Days Grace setting up a phenomenal night of live music. With severe storms in the forecast, it was determined that the show would go on rain or shine with the only thing possible of causing a shutdown being lightning and thunder. How bad could it get…?
The day began with Wage War in the Razor studio chatting with me about touring, writing Manic, offstage antics, and navigating the music world. After nervously navigating my first in-person radio interview EVER, I loaded Wage War into the Razor Blazer and bussed them up to Green Bay so that they could get ready for the show.
Come 5PM, the doors were opened and myself along with thousands of Green Bay rockers entered the stadium. By this point the sky has filled with clouds and there was a light drizzle, but it was beyond manageable. At around 6:00PM ZERO 9:36 took the stage during a steadier stream of rain. Not long after, lightning began crashing all around the stadium much to the band’s concern. The crowd however, did not care AT ALL about the lightning storm that had begun.
I saw a stagehand make a big “X” with his arms and I knew the show would be shut down after the song that was currently being performed. Sure enough, around 6:10PM the song finished up and ZERO ran offstage along with the rest of the band. An announcement cam over the loudspeaker that due to the lightning, the show would be postponed until it was confirmed that there would be no lightning in the area. The crowd, understandably, was not too pleased with such an announcement.
Then the wind came. Hard.
We were all standing around in the concourse when we got hit with massive gusts of wind blowing anything that was not tied down. Shortly after the wind came, so did security. Security was doing everything they could to usher everyone out of the stadium and back to their cars to wait out the storm. Myself and my childhood friend Hunter booked it to the Razor Blazer that was parked at the entrance. With the wind at our backs we felt like The Flash, EASILY hitting 20mph in our sprint to the car. Not to brag, but it only took me 20 minutes of sitting to recover from the strain I put on my body by running that hard.
From there the storm only intensified. Sideways rain, insane lightning, and high winds pummeled us and everyone else who was trying to scramble for cover. After about an hour of intense weather, the storm moved on and the gates at Capital Credit Union Park reopened around 7:45PM. Luckily nobody was hurt amidst the insanity. Except for Wage War’s gear…
Unfortunately the storm came so fast there wasn’t much time to properly cover Wage War’s equipment that was sitting on the open stage ready to go. My last visual before evacuating the stadium was watching the tarp covering Wage War’s drum kit get blown away leaving it exposed to all of the elements. Once the storm passed, the damage was significant enough to force Wage War to have to cancel their set.
The hardworking crew at EPIC Event Center and Capital Credit Union Park did a phenomenal job clearing off the stage and putting everything back together so that Three Days Grace could perform.
With the weather now gone and the stage put back together, Three Days Grace hit the stage around 8:30PM and played a killer set! Fan favorites “Riot”, “Animal I Have Become”, “Pain”, “I Hate Everything About You”, and “Home” were all featured in the set. Among the hits were also newer tracks “So Called Life”, and the chart-topping single “Lifetime” off of their most recent album Explosions. At one point a “show your balls” chant broke out aimed at Three Days Grace drummer Neil Sanderson. Green Bay was in rare form on this night…
Following a killer set from Three Days Grace, a few hundred fans headed to the concourse to check out Wage War who had set up for a short acoustic set by the main entrance. Wage War stated that they were quite unprepared for the large crowd and apologized for not being able to amplify their instruments. Those who were there were just happy to be there.
Wage War went on to play “Godspeed”, “Johnny Cash”, “Prison”, “Circle The Drain” among a few others. Fans sang along in a beautiful moment of raw emotion following such a chaotic and, for Wage War and their fans, frustrating day. I spoke to Cody and Seth afterwards thanking them for making some time for the fans at the end of the night.
“You don’t have to thank us, this is no problem at all. It just sucks we couldn’t play tonight.” – Cody Quistad
All in all, what a fun night! Myself and everyone at the stadium that night will never forget the Three Days Grace show that almost never was.
