Anyone who is into hard rock or metal has heard of the band Staind! Formed in 1994, Staind has produced seven studio albums with multiple chart topping singles including Outside, It’s Been Awhile, Fade, and So Far Away to name a few. The band Staind has a vocal powerhouse front man by the name of Aaron Lewis and it was once again my pleasure to see him on his acoustic tour.

Aaron Lewis still tours with Staind, but has in recent years strayed from the hard rock sound and turned to country music recently releasing two solo country albums. In early 2011 Lewis released his first solo EP Town Line and a follow-up full solo album The Road released in late 2012. The song Country Boy from Town Line even featured old school country power houses George Jones and Charlie Daniels. Both albums are pretty great if you like country like it should be and not today’s pop music with a twangy guitar crap that wrongly gets the ‘Country Music’ label. I applaud Lewis for keeping country music alive and hope he continues to produce it!

Lewis has done solo acoustic shows for some time now. Nothing shows off talent like one man with one guitar and Aaron Lewis oozes talent. Lewis’s vocals are legendary with a multiple octave range and power that would make any singer’s spine tingle. He has such a range and lungs capable of carrying a note for what seems like minutes, it’s captivating! His solo shows are no frills; somewhat unorthodox and fluid often changing course right in the middle of a song. You really never know what you’re going to get at a solo Lewis performance and I love it!

I made it to Lewis’s sold out hour and a half set at the Voodoo Lounge in Kansas City, Missouri. Lewis’s solo shows had in the past been a one man show, so I was surprised to see a second mic and stool. This was for a slide guitar player who added to the set without taking away from Lewis’s vocals. I can say without a doubt Aaron Lewis is one of the best vocal performers I have ever heard; you have to be to do a show like this and pull it off, which Aaron easily does. He sang several acoustic versions of hit Staind songs as well as several off his country albums.

Lewis has become known for taking requests from the crowd and covering popular songs as he did this night. Aaron did several killer covers like Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive, Sheryl Crow’s Strong Enough, and a blistering rendition of Alice In Chains’s Rooster. A crowd favorite had to have been Kermit the Frog’s Rainbow Connection giving everyone a chuckle, as well as the always popular Bob Seger’s Turn the Page. The Aaron Lewis solo acoustic set comes highly recommend by me!

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Casey Drahota
Casey@RockStarPhotographer.com
RockStarPhotographer.com

 

About The Author

From the first time Casey played one of his mom's old records on her pioneer turntable, he knew what he wanted to be, a rock star. Everything changed after seeing his first concert, Def Leopard back in the 80's. It is one thing to listen to a great song on the radio, but to see a great performer on stage performing that same song is what he loves. His life long passion for live music has intersected with a more recent passion of photography to once again change everything by introducing him to the world of concert photography. Getting a great shot of an amazing performance and seeing the reactions to a photograph can be exhilarating. Being a concert photographer can be chaotic, exciting, high energy, obstacle ridden, right in the mix place to be while trying to concentrate on getting great band interaction and emotion.