NORTHAMPTON – Aaron Lewis, lead singer of Rawk band Staind, put together his fourth annual charity concert at Look Park in Northampton last Friday. Billed as Aaron Lewis and Friends, the concert is used to raise funds for Lewis and wife Vanessa’s It Takes A Community Foundation.
It Takes A Community Foundation was founded when the State of Massachusetts took away funding for the R.H. Conwell School in Worthington. With children attending the school at the time and not having a great alternative, the Lewis’s decided to take action and started a foundation to save the school. The foundation came through and provided most of the funds to re-open as a private school. The Foundation has grown tremendously and now helps out a number of different organizations with a focus on rural communities. More information can be found at www.itacf.org.
Aaron Lewis has put together four of these concerts so far, each with great success and a revolving door of great artists contributing their time and energy. This one featured a solo set of Lewis doing mostly material from his country releases. Lewis and his country bandmates managed about an hour-long set to the delight of the crowd on hand featuring Red, White and Blue, Granddaddy’s Gun, Country Boy and a country version of the Staind song Tangled Up in You. Lewis also included a new song called Northern Red Neck which pokes fun at redneck references in country music and that there are plenty of them north of the Mason Dixon line. The loudest cheers went out for the song Massachusetts which includes references to Lewis’s upbringing in the local area and his love for the state and the people in it.
Next up were the duo Smith and Meyers, singer and guitar player for superstar Rawk band Shinedown. Brent Smith and Zach Meyers have two releases of acoustic cover songs that they grew up on or have some meaning to them personally. Their set was a mix of cover songs and Shinedown classics. They open the set with the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic Simple Man, which was then followed by Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive and then the first Shinedown song of the night, Bully. The set was fairly quick and it seems they may have had to cut a few songs due to time constraints. Some other highlights were the Black Crowes cover of She Talks to Angels and Shinedowns own mega hit, Second Chance.
They saved the best for last… Staind took the stage to close out the show with a rare acoustic set of their own. Singer Aaron Lewis was joined on stage by Mike Mushok on guitar, Johnny April on bass and Sal Giancarelli on drums. The band sounded amazing opening the show with Devil and then followed that with Home and Everything Changes. It is great to see this hard Rawking band settle in for an evening of acoustic sounds. The set continued with Fade, Take This and Outside. As the program saved the best for last so did Staind… ending the night with a full blown audience singalong, It’s Been A While was the perfect song for this perfect evening.
The night was really all about the children and throughout the event, Lewis brought the Conwell students to the stage on numerous occasions. First by getting the entire audience to stand for an Aaron Lewis led Pledge of Allegiance. A second break had Lewis leading the way with a fantastic rendition of All God’s Critters and lastly with a version of The Muppets Rainbow Connection.
What a great night of music for fans of all different genres. This night was for the kids and Aaron Lewis never let us forget the main reason we all were there. When this comes back around next year, support the community and the foundation. This is one of the best concerts that I attend on a yearly basis. The setting is fantastic, the music great and the purpose is what brings this all together.
