Roughly ten years ago one of my friends loaned me his copy of the Alice In Chain’s MTV unplugged CD. Since that time, I’ve listened to that CD thousands of times, and have become one of the biggest Alice In Chains fans on the planet. I have had the opportunity to see Jerry Cantrell play a number of shows across the country, and attended an Alice In Chains show earlier this year. During that show, the guys from AIC played an awesome acoustic set, which left me wanting more. A few months back I got notified that AIC was doing a number of acoustic shows across the country, so I decided to head down to New Orleans to check one out.
New Orleans is an incredible town, so I decided to wander down a couple of days early to relax and have a little fun. While relaxing on the top of the Omni hotel the night before the show, I looked over at the bar and saw Mike Inez (the Alice In Chain’s bassist) drinking it up with his friends. I was completely taken by this, and couldn’t believe that a member of one of my favorite bands was sitting twenty feet away from me. When Mike got up to leave, I stopped him for a second to tell him we ventured down to see him, and thanked him for putting on the acoustic show (I totally respect peoples privacy, so I kept the conversation to two sentences). He smiled, thanked us for coming, and then headed out to have some fun with his friends.
On the day of the show, I was still flying high from meeting one of the band members (I saw Jerry Cantrell in the hotel bar, but he was less than friendly for some reason), so I was hoping the acoustic show would elevate things to the next level. The band took the stage around 9:30pm, and opened the show with the song “Don’t Follow.” The sound system at the House of Blues really made the acoustic instruments stand out, and the opening song sounded absolutely incredible! Jerry, William, Mike and Sean followed up the opening song with a slew of classic AIC songs, including “Heaven Beside You,” “Brother,” “Nutshell,” “Killer is Me,” “Sludge Factory,” “Love Hate Love,” “No Excuses,” “Down in a Hole,” “Angry Chair,” “Got me Wrong,” “Would?” and “Rooster.” This show has to go down as one of the best concerts I have ever attended, and hearing these guys play acoustic made my year! Viva la AIC!!!