Alice In Chains at a show that wasn't in Detroit this past Friday.
Alice in Chains may be one of the few rock bands from the 90’s that have done a comeback without blowing it out of proportion or trying to relive the past too much. With the death of Layne Staley back on 2002, Alice in Chains reemerged in 2005 with a new lead singer (William Duvall), and slowly made baby steps before recapturing some of their past glory.
With their way sold out show of about 3,000 at the Fillmore Detroit, Alice in Chains made their third trip to Detroit in the past year well worth it for fans wanting to hear the band’s catalog of moody hard rock. Starting out with the new track “All Secrets Known”, Jerry Cantrell and company played the populist role during their show. Instead of trying to alienate older fans with playing the new album in its entireity or digging into solo material, Alice in Chains brought the hits and the fans jumped all over it. They didn’t waste any time playing cuts like “Them Bones” and “It Ain’t Like That”, which gave the mostly twenty and thirty-something crowd visions of Lollapalooza 1993.
As he has since the band has reformed, Duvall has proven he is more up to the vocal challenge of the truly haunting voice of Staley, especially when he gets into songs like “Angry Chair” and “Rain When I Die”. Sure, there are a lot of times where guitarist’s Jerry Cantrell harmonizing helps to give the songs an extra punch, but Duvall is clearly paying homage to Staley and finding his own voice at the same time.
Now that the band’s new album “Black Gives Way To Blue” has been a success upon its release last fall, the band has peppered the new songs into the lineup. Crowd favorites so far include the bleak sounding “Acid Bubble” and the groove-laden single “Check My Brain” and have met with strong praise from fans.
Alice in Chains may not have strayed far from their original sound since the band’s rebirth 5 years ago, but given the reaction of the show at the Fillmore, I don’t think fans were looking for a total change- tried and true was the theme of the night for what was a very quality show.
