By Amanda Dyslin
Free Press Features Editor
MANKATO — The Verizon Wireless Center has had quite a run on hard rock this past year.
There was the Buckcherry and Avenged Sevenfold concert, with Papa Roach and Saving Abel last February. Then there was Slipknot with DevilDriver and All That Remains in May. And, of course, in August we had the Pedal to the Metal Tour, featuring Mudvayne, Black Label Society, Static X, Bury Your Dead, Suicide Silence and Hellzapoppin.
With the shows selling pretty well, why not keep a good thing going? It seems the new trend is continuing in 2010 with the platinum band Three Days Grace performing at the Verizon Saturday night with Breaking Benjamin and Flyleaf.
Three Days Grace is a Toronto-based band made up of Adam Gontier (vocals, guitar), Neil Sanderson (drums, piano), Brad Walst (bass) and Barry Stock (lead guitar). Songs you’ve most likely heard are “I Hate Everything About You,” “Just Like You” and “Home,” which were on the band’s self-titled release from 2003.
The band’s most recent release is “Life Starts Now,” which followed “One-X” and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard Top 200 charts. “Break” is the first single from the album.
Breaking Benjamin — Benjamin Burnley (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Aaron Fink (lead guitar), Mark Klepaski (bass guitar) and Chad Szeliga (drums) — is classified as a post-grunge band and has released four albums. The band experienced its first mainstream success with the single “So Cold,” which spent 37 weeks on the Top 20 Billboard chart.
The song “Firefly” was featured on “Smackdown Vs. Raw” the video game, and the band collaborated with Smashing Pumpkins’ lead singer Billy Corgan on several songs.
Flyleaf is a female-fronted Texas rock band made up of Lacey Mosley (lead vocals), Sameer Bhattacharya (lead guitar), Jared Hartmann (rhythm guitar), Pat Seals (bass) and James Culpepper (drums). The band’s debut self-titled album came out in 2005 and went platinum. Their sophomore album, “Memento Mori,” was released in November 2009.
