Collective Soul’s Aug 29 Concert in Vancouver, Canada

Now in their 31^st year, the Georgia-based rock band has stood the test of time in a way many other bands haven’t. They started in 1992 during the grunge era, and their first #1 hit (Shine) was a demo song that took off like a rocket. The 1990s produced a myriad of singles, and through the 2000s they’ve seen less commercial success. But that hasn’t stopped them from releasing albums every couple of years and regularly touring, playing around 75 shows a year.

Their current tour, unnamed and loosely in support of an album released last August, stopped for two shows in Vancouver. The last time they played here was in 2019 when they were touring with the Gin Blossoms in support of their album Blood released that same year.

Vancouver’s shows were held at the Commodore Ballroom; a licensed, live-music nightclub that’s hosted The Police, Nirvana, David Bowie and The Red Hot Chili Peppers to name a few. With a capacity of almost 1,000 people, the crowd was ready and prepped for a night of nostalgic rock.

At 9:30pm the lights dimmed and the crowd roared as the five members of the band took to the stage. They opened the show with Cut the Cord, the opening track to their last album, Vibrating. The show started strong with five songs back-to-back including two of their #1 hits, Heavy and Shine.

Now being 20+ minutes into the set, it was time for a break and some interaction with the crowd. Ed Rolland – the frontman, songwriter, singer and band leader – told the crowd how much he loved coming to Vancouver which was (obviously) well received. What the crowd thought would be a short break turned into a prolonged story about the recording of their next album, to be released in April 2024. Ed was coming being self-indulgent and the crowd was starting to lose interest as the general chatter in the audience increased. All of this was an effort to introduce the next two song from the aforementioned unreleased album.

That two-song set was followed by a bit more banter from Ed who’s gotten more eccentric with age. At only 60 years old, his days of wearing a non-descript t-shirt or dress shirt on stage are long gone. Now with his garish glasses, wavy long hair and colourful outfits he looks more like the lovechild of Elton John and Willy Wonka. A bit of personality, even a strange one, fits an entertainer well but it needs to be engaging and in service of the audience that’s paying to be there. It was becoming painfully apparent that Ed was not reading the audience at all.

The next two songs were going back in their catalogue to 1997 with their hit Precious Declaration followed by 2004’s Better Now. It seemed as though the show was about to pick up some steam again, but those illusions were crushed during the second half of Better Now. They added a break into the song, with Johnny Rabb keeping the beat going on the bass drum and Ed announcing that it was time to play. Although the groan wasn’t audible, I am sure it was present in the crowd.

Ed walked back to the drum kit and started doing scat vocals as Jonny soloed on his kit. Had this lasted for a minute, then exploding back into the song it would have passed without much commentary. But that’s not what happened. It lasted for several minutes, and again Ed was clueless to the waning interest of the crowd. Johnny brought it to a natural conclusion, but Ed wasn’t done yet and encouraged Johnny to do more. Powerless, he acquiesced, and the segment lasted for the length of the album version of the song. Finally, the band jumped back in for the remainder of the song after which it was time for another break.

This time Ed strapped on an acoustic guitar and the break was short as they launched into She Said. The next song on their roster was the crowd favourite The World I Know, but Ed wanted to do an acoustic intro and asked the crowd to quiet down for it. The problem is, he’d now squandered the good will of the audience by drastically bringing the energy level and momentum of the show to a halt and they seemed more interested in chatting amongst themselves. You could see the band got it, with rhythm guitarist Dean Roland – brother of Ed – sitting down on the drum riser as he knew it was going to be a minute. The crowd was pretty much ignoring Ed now and he started pleading. Eventually the crowd quieted down long enough for him to start his intro into a song the crowd was pleased to hear.

Having just played two songs requiring Ed’s acoustic, he took it off as they started their hit December. This was baffling as the song builds to a layered crescendo that has three distinct guitar lines. With Dean playing Rhythm and Jesse Triplet on lead, Ed’s acoustic was very much needed. Regrettably December fell flat and sounded hollow and there was no discernable reason for this poor decision. It was another example of Ed giving into his whims.

As a long-time fan of the band, counting them as my favourite group for more than 20 years, Ed was now seeming arrogant and out of touch with his fanbase. This is particularly odd since he humbly thanks the audience at every show and is cognoscente of the fact that they are blessed to be able to continue to make music and it’s only because of fans like us. I’ve heard that speech at each show and I used to believe that he meant it. Now it seems he’s more of the mindset that he has a captive audience who is there to see him.

After December there was another chin wagging session which didn’t start as planned. A drunk woman in the front room kept hooting and hollering each time Ed spoke, a clear sign of the crowd’s mood. He was growing irritated and pleaded with her to stop, and eventually she did. Ed regaled the audience with a list of bands who also hailed from Atlanta and focused on one of their favorites; REM. With that they started their final set with a cover of The One I Love which has become a mainstay for them.

The show ended with three of their 1990’s hits – Gel, Why Pt 2 and Where the River Flows – before launching into their constant show-closer Run.

The show was 1hr 45m in which time they only got through 17 songs. With an average song length of under five minutes, they could have easily done a 21 song set and still had time for the right quantity of banter. They only played one song from their recent album, one song from their previous album, yet they played two unreleased songs and one cover. You would think promoting their recent releases would be more to the audience’s liking and they had three songs with which to do that (without adding additional songs).

All four members of the band – Dean, Johnny, Jesse and Will Turpin on bass – played in strong form. At times you could see they also looked frustrated, or at least cognisant, of the disconnect between Ed and the audience. But they were unable to do anything about it because this was clearly the Ed Roland show featuring the music of Collective Soul.

This was the setlist:

1. Cut The Cord
2. Heavy
3. Right As Rain
4. Compliment
5. Shine

<Long banter segment>

6. Mother’s Love (unreleased)
7. Not the Same (unreleased)

<Banter segment>

8. Precious Declaration
9. Better Now

<Banter segment>

10. She Said

<Pleading with the audience to be quiet>

11. The World I Know
12. December

<Banter segment>

13. The One I Love
14. Why Pt 2
15. Gel
16. Where the River Flows
17. Run

Alistair Henry

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Alistair is a foodie from Vancouver who occasionally goes to concerts. Most of his reviews are for restaurants and travel, but discovered that the same formula works for music reviews!  

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