The general public’s reaction to the infamous Canadian legends Nickelback has always been mixed. For a band that have oft been jokingly touted as the world’s most hated band, they have both a hell of a lot of iconic, chart-storming anthems, and a vaunted record of both festival headlining slots and sold out stadium shows, that beg to differ. Indeed, they’re one of the small minority of bands that have managed to squeeze their way into the ‘Billions Club’ on Spotify, with hit 2001 anthem How You Remind Me recently squeaking past the ten figures count for its streams. But, whatever the consensus is, there’s one thing that’s for certain: for the 15,000 or so crammed into the North Greenwich arena, and even if only for one night, Nickelback were everything. With special guests The Lottery Winners, the night promise to be a good one.
Nickelback @ The O2
If you need proof for manifesting destiny, just look at Nickelback’s support. January 18, 2021, saw the Mancunian quartet The Lottery Winners post a sea shanty version of quintessential Nickelback song, Rockstar, to take advantage of that particular lockdown craze; a week later, Nickelback had added their own vocals to the mix. Now, three years later, The Lottery Winners’ top song on Spotify is Rockstar Sea Shanty, and here they are as Nickelback’s sole support for the shows, and deservedly so. Watching them come on stage, welcomed by an already packed to the rafters O2 Arena, was a beautiful sight — not least by vocalist Thom Rylance, so stunned by the view from the stage that he had leave and back on to take advantage of the resounding welcome once more.
“I feel like Freddy Mercury but fat!” Thom joked; you can say a lot about The Lottery Winners, but lost for words out-and-out refuses to be one of them. Channelling the iconic vocal tomfoolery of Queen at Live Aid, conducting the crowd through his signature vocal exercises, Thom had the crowd warmed up even before they’d started any song. The start of the piano-led, poppy earworm of Worry, then, felt almost redundant. “We’ve played every pub in the country”, we’re told, “for no money — this is the meaning of life for us”. And the Meaning Of Life for The O2, too, as the band broke into the eponymous track.
With such a frankly effervescent frontman, disarming charm oozing off of each Northern-accented word rolling from his tongue, it would be easy to assume the band would be over-shone. Far from it, in fact — each band member was dragged into interacting with the crowd, though only Joe Singleton on the drums wasn’t already contributing vocals to the band’s unique harmonies. “We got a number one album”, Thom informed the arena; “I thought I’d be a totally new man — I thought I’d get laser eye surgery, veneers, penis reduction…” — though, getting to play to 15,000 hopefully made up for it.
A seven song set seems short for the sole support of the night; yet the between-song cajoling, the confident verbal splurge, and the almost pantomimic interactions with the crowd, let The Lottery Winners make a hell of a bigger mark on the night than their forty or so minutes would suggest.
Ending with the fan favourite duo of Start Again and Burning House, The Lottery Winners sure lived up their name, comfortably winning over the crowd — and, with their vowing to headline the room themselves within four years, the dream suddenly doesn’t feel as out of reach. With six intimate shows just announced for the Summer — two each in Bedford, Tunbridge Wells and Guildford — now’s the perfect time to see them while you’re still within touching distance.
Coming on stage to the animated visual of a car chase, before breaking into the rocky San Quentin, one of only two tracks of the night taken from the band’s most recent album, Get Rollin’, Nickelback’s first time in London in over six years felt infinitely special. So much has happened since 2018, even ignoring the global pandemic-shaped hole that Covid left in the collective consciousness of the world; so, for Nickelback, there was so much time to make up for. Get the show rolling indeed!
Savin’ Me followed shortly after, the boys emblazoned on huge screens hanging above them, before the boy-band ballad-esque Far Away, complete with the obligatory tonal-shift-to-makor-key, saw spotlights beaming over the room. The distinct guitar riffs of Animals led into the furiously frantic, fan-favourite anthem; Someday saw Chad Kroeger’s soaring vocals give way to a rousing guitar solo from Ryan Peake; venomous vapours gave the band sickly green silhouettes during Worthy To Say.
Even with the album the tour was supporting only making such a brief appearance, the night felt like a celebration of everything that made Nickelback, well, Nickelback. Figured You Out, T-shirt cannons firing indiscriminately at the rabid rabble arrayed in front of them, and the ballot-nominated deep cut of Because Of You, its relative out-of-place heaviness feeling more like a Bullet For My Valentine song than a The Long Road classic, even down to Chad’s distorted vocals towards the end and the sanguine drenched strobes from the stage, bookmarked the hopeful, Treana Peake-dedicated When We Stand Together; The O2 was even graced with an English-karaoke highlight by way of a cover of the Oasis classic Don’t Look Back In Anger, The Lottery Winners returning back to the stage to take the other Mancunians’ places.
Speaking of karaoke, it was then, of course, time for ‘the hits’. With the acoustic guitar coming out for the “generationally dividing” Photograph, it became almost a challenge to hear the band over the crowd, a fact the band quickly leant into by bringing tattooed and bare-chested fan — ‘Craig’ — on stage for Rockstar, quite literally giving him the experience that anyone singing the song to themselves in the car must have envisioned and finally motivating cowboy hat-adorned bassist Mike Kroeger to shed his top as well!
The nostalgic, halcyon tones of Those Days — a newbie, to be sure, but one hell of a goodie — then, finally, led into the song. Diving straight into the opening strums of the chorus, the crowd going ballistic, led to possibly the biggest rhetorical of the night: “Are we having fun yet?” What other song could it be, bar the unbelievably iconic How You Remind Me.
The encore felt almost underwhelming in comparison — no mean feat given the two final tracks. The softer Gotta Be Somebody and the almost angsty Burn It To The Ground, both taken from 2008’s Dark Horse, finally brought the night to a close; and, even if the venue might have already started emptying, some of the more cautious amongst the crowd trying to beat the foot traffic en route to the nearest tube station, no one could have asked for anything more.
Love them or hate them, whatever your reasons, one thing’s for sure: Nickelback know how to put on a show, and boy do they know how to deliver.
Live review of Nickelback at The O2, London on 21st May 2024 by James O’Sullivan. Photography by Kalpesh Patel.
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