Last night I made my way to the Ticketpro Dome in Johannesburg to watch Lifehouse and Collective Soul Live and it turned out to be an amazing experience.
Lifehouse is best known for their song Hanging By a Moment (which was released in 2000) but the band was actually formed in 1996. To date they’ve released 8 studio albums. The album on which their most popular single was released, No Name Face was actually their second album. Their 1999 debut album was actually released under their first name, Blyss.
Here’s my review of Collective Soul & Lifehouse Live in Johannesburg
Lifehouse made their way onto the stage just after 8 PM and warmed up the crowd. It turned out that I actually knew more songs by them than I thought I did. The highlight of their set was obviously hearing Hanging By a Moment, but it was actually great hearing songs like Sick Cycle Carousel. Another highlight has to be hearing the crowd singing along to You and Me (a song which was released on their self-titled album in 2005). The band asked the crowd to switch on the torches on their phones to generate a great mood.
After a quick drink and smoke break and a half-an-hour walkabout it was finally time for Collective Soul to make their way onto the stage at the Ticketpro Dome. The band started out their set with Heavy and followed it with a song called This (which was released in 2015). After this Ed Roland moved to the keyboard on the side of the stage and started playing the opening cords to their 1994 single Shine. This song was the first Collective Soul song I ever heard and it brought back memories, so obviously I was hit by a wave of emotions.
Gel and Precious Declaration was up next, but the nostalgia and emotions really went into overdrive when I heard their song December. The fact that lead singer Ed Roland said that he wrote the song when the band was on tour in Miami and that the band hated it didn’t matter at all because the Joburg crowd loved it.
Other highlights of Collective Soul‘s was definitely The World I Know and Why Part 2, but the best part was definitely hearing Run live for the first time. Hearing the crowd singing along to every single word was just the cherry on top.
The songs I didn’t know were actually not bad at all. I think I should dig into the music they’ve been releasing over the last few years because it seems that I’ve been missing out. The band is currently working on their tenth studio album and will be celebrating 25 years in the music industry in 2019.
Thanks to Big Concerts for bringing Collective Soul & Lifehouse out to South Africa. The bar queues weren’t too bad, moving around and having a smoke break outside wasn’t as painstaking as previous shows at the Ticketpro Dome and it was a well-organized affair.
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