Shinedown's Brent Smith whips old Brown County arena back into rock shape

ASHWAUBENON – Even an old and tired building can be whipped back into shape under the right leader, and Brent Smith was that authority figure on Saturday night.

The magnetic Shinedown singer commanded and demanded, often with military-like precision, during a stop on his band’s Attention Attention Tour.

When he said jump, the sold-out crowd of 5,000-plus jumped.

When he cordially asked them to shake hands with the person standing next to them, they shook hands. And then he hit them in the face with “Enemies.”

When he told them to sing “Happy Birthday” to guitarist Jerry Horton of opening act Papa Roach (a couple of hours early but with fully lit cake onstage nonetheless), they sang “Happy Birthday.”

By the time he got around to the rock band’s rousing “Get Up,” Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena was in lockstep with his every move.

At that moment, the 60-year-old building that will face demolition this spring felt like the rock joint of old. It wasn’t about how sweaty it was, how sticky the floor was, how miserable the old wooden seats were, it was about the show and the showman in charge.

Funny how a top-notch stage production, unrelenting lasers and enough pyro to make you fear for drummer Barry Kerch’s life can class a place up.

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But all starts and ends with 41-year-old Smith. The appeal isn’t just the tremendous energy he brings to the stage, it’s that he has the vocal firepower to back it up. It’s the difference between a frontman with a whole lot of bluster and a singer with unwavering intensity that lands the emotion of the music most every time. He was menacing on “Devil,” “Cut the Cord” and “Sound of Madness,” and then dialed it down for “Amaryllis” and “I’ll Follow You.” 

The band did a terrific set mid-show on a small stage that jutted into the crowd. "Second Chance" turned the arena into a sea of cellphone "Halley's comets," and it was just Smith and guitarist Zach Myers for Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.” The night's bonus song, chosen by Smith, was "Misfits," off 2015's "Threat to Survival."

The band talked warmly, not just about the band's relationship with fans in Green Bay since first hitting radio in 2003, but also about the history of the arena — a building Myers said “has been here for us since our grandparents were here."

Smith had some fun with Shinedown being under the impression they would be the last act to play the 1958 building, only to find out those honors will go to Poison singer Bret Michaels on April 6. When the crowd booed, he and bassist Eric Bass talked about their love for Poison.

“I wouldn’t be standing here right now if I hadn’t been like a 13-year-old kid who heard ‘Talk Dirty to Me’ on the radio," Bass said. "It made me want to play guitar. You can boo it all you want.”

So Shinedown goes down as the second-to-the-last act to play Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena. Not as glamorous of a footnote in Green Bay music history, but Michaels has his work cut out fhim if he's going to top it when his sold-out Saturday night comes around.