Seether at the Gramercy Theatre

Shaun Morgan

Seether formed in 1999 in Pretoria, South Africa, under the name Saron Gas (a name taken from the back of a sound effects CD) and released an album in 2000. The band was renamed Seether in 2002 and immediately achieved international success. The hard rocking band released eight albums in all, two of which achieved platinum sales and two more that were certified gold, along with a live concert DVD that has sold over 500,000 units, for total worldwide sales in excess of 4.5 million. The band amassed 11 #1 singles and 17 Top 5 multi-format hits resulting in singles sales that top seven million. A new album, Isolate and Medicate, was released today. Seether is comprised of Shaun Morgan on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Dale Stewart on bass, John Humphrey on drums and new member Bryan Wickmann on lead guitar.

Seether last performed at the Gramercy Theatre in 2011 and tonight's set was very similar, in that the show was a greatest hits package with the addition of five new songs. Seether opened tonight's set with a new slow-building but forceful Nirvana-esque song, "See You At The Bottom," but immediately followed with "Gasoline" and "Fine Again" from the band's debut album. Hardly a word was spoken to the audience; Seether instead played 14 songs in a workmanlike 80 minutes, and the space between songs was sometimes filled with metal riffs on loop. Morgan, positioned at stage right, alternated between smooth and raw singing while the band married crashing grunge to melodic metal so slickly polished that it sounded mainstream. New songs "My Disaster", "Crash" and "Save Today" sounded like they could have been vintage Seether, while "Rise Above This", "Tonight", "Country Song", "Fake It" and "Remedy" were in fact vintage Seether. Seether had the formula; they blended pop and noise into melodic, commercial rock.

Visit Seether at www.seether.com.