It was clear upon arriving at the Scotiabank Centre on May 8th that the music-goers in the city are starved for a hard rock experience. Lines snaked out of the building from every entrance, and each line wrapped around the building. There was a palpable energy as folks arrived early, excited to hear their favourite tunes from Royal Tusk, Finger Eleven and Three Days Grace, and chatted excitedly amongst themselves. Those lines eventually fed into the arena bowl, and there was a cathartic roar when the lights finally went down in this, the biggest barn in town.
West Coast rockers Royal Tusk kicked the night off with a hard-hitting set featuring cuts from their three studio releases as well as their latest single Vindicate. It was a visit that was long overdue for the Edmonton band, who last visited the city back in May of 2016, when they rattled the rafters down the street at the Carleton. What was more impressive was that the band’s lineup was largely unchanged, with drummer Joel Jeschke joining the lineup in recent years as the only new addition.
With the crowd primed, it was time for the stalwarts of the Canadian music scene, Finger Eleven, to hit the stage. Even though Finger Eleven didn’t drop its debut album until 1997 with Tip, they were no strangers to the scene, or to Halifax, for that matter. Under their previous moniker, Rainbow Butt Monkeys, the band visited Halifax in the late 90s to support legendary rockers Bon Jovi, but to eschew the idea that they were a novelty act, they left their colourful alter ego in the dirt and became Finger Eleven. Ahead of the band rush onto the Scotiabank Centre stage, an old-school DVD inspired graphic played on screen, with a Finger Eleven logo slowly bouncing across the massive screen at the back of the stage, once it reached its conclusion the band’s named appeared and Scott Anderson, Rick Jackett, James Black, Sean Anderson, and Steve Moella hit the stage and launched into a set that was comprised of the band’s greatest hits, alongside a couple of cuts from the band’s 2025 release Last Night on Earth.
Having been there to see Rainbow Butt Monkeys and those early years of Finger Eleven. This show served as a reminder of what I loved about those early F11 days when the Greyest of Blue Skies was firmly entrenched in the playlist, as was the self-titled follow-up. The band was recently in town as part of The Tea Party and The Headstones tour, but scheduling conflicts prevented me from attending, so needless to say, the excitement was palpable when the band was added to this bill. For anyone who was in attendance for either of those shows can attest, tracks such as “One Thing” and “You and I” take on a new potency when they are performed live, versus when you hear them on the radio. As grunge faded into the history books, and the nu-metal era was wrapping up, Finger Eleven distilled the magic of the Can-Con rock scene, kept the nu-metal snarl, and cranked the amps to 11. Through that alchemy, a distinct sound was forged, one that helped pave the way for bands such as Three Days Grace, who followed.
Three Days Grace has been a staple of the Canadian rock music scene for well over 25 years, initially kicking the door down and bursting onto the scene with the seething “I Hate Everything About You” (a track that has been streamed over 1.25 billion times). It was a track that propelled the band throughout the entirety of its career. In the years that followed that debut, the band has gone through three distinct eras: The Breakthrough, The Evolution and the Reconciliation. In 2003, the success of “I Hate Everything About You” propelled the band’s self-titled debut, and tracks such as “Home” and “Just Like You” cemented their place in the hearts of a growing fanbase. On the success of that first album, the band was added to Nickelback’s “The Long Road Tour,” which saw the band hit the East Coast and Halifax for the first time, performing on the Garrison Grounds.
That Breakthrough era didn’t come without its own obstacles and hurdles, as lead singer Adam Gontier developed an addiction to Oxycodone ahead of the band’s sophomore album, and checked into a treatment facility in order to forge a path ahead. It was during that time in rehab that lyrics for what would become One-X were being committed to paper. The songs reflected Gontier’s experiences in rehab, and that writing gave birth to some of the most visceral and iconic Three Days Grace songs in “Animal I Have Become”, “Pain,” and “Never Too Late”. The next couple of albums (Life Starts Now and Transit of Venus) failed to live up to the promise of those first two records, all the while giving us “Break”, “World So Cold,” and “Chalk Outline”. Then, after a decade of making music together, Adam Gonthier departed Three Days Grace abruptly, and with a tour looming, the band needed a lead vocalist. Fortunately, bassist Brad Walst’s brother Matt had been the frontman for My Darkest Days and was asked to step in and helm the band, starting the Evolution era.
The addition of Matt Walst was exactly what the band needed, and Three Days Grace had re-discovered its potent hard-rock snarl and unleashed “Painkiller” to signify a righting of the ship. The new direction was hard-hitting and potent; this was not a band content to sit back on its past success and forged forward with an urgency that they had lost to an extent. Over the next decade, the band would drop a trio of albums (Human, Outsider and EXPLOSIONS) that would continue to expand the band’s fanbase, and would see the band tour both south of the border and internationally, becoming a world-famous hard-rock band in the process. What Matt Walst achieved with stepping in to an established band and continued propelling the band forward for almost a decade is almost unheard of. It was especially tough as a legion of fans hear Adam Gontier in their heads when Three Days Grace is mentioned.
Fast forward to 2024, where Adam Gontier returned to the Three Days Grace fold, and the band started work for the first time as a 5-piece band with both Adam and Matt sharing lead duties. It was this reconciliation that kicked off the present-day era for Three Days Grace and led the band back into the studio to record Alienation (the band’s 8th studio effort). You can hear that renewed vigour of the band with its now dual vocalists on the album’s tracks “Mayday” and “Apologies”, it’s almost how the band should have always been. To cement this era, the band hit the road in early 2026 with the Alienation tour, which saw the band return to Halifax to play the Scotiabank Centre with an elaborate stage set-up, complete with a catwalk so the guys in the band could get up close and personal with the adoring Haligonians.
The set kicked off with an introduction from Ricky, Julien and perpetually topless Randy of Trailer Park Boys fame, then the band launched into Alienation’s lead single “Dominate” to an appreciative roar from the packed area. Had the band come out and put the pedal to the floor for the entire 23-song set, no one would have batted an eye, but that wasn’t how the night played out. On this tour, Three Days Grace wanted to switch things up a bit, and it’s even reflected in their latest music video for “Don’t Wanna Go Home Tonight, ” where the band slowed the proceedings down, cleared the stage a bit, and brought out some stools and a faux-campfire to perform a couple of songs acoustically. It felt like one of those epic summer nights, where you get to fire up the fire pit and relax with friends around it, even if it is 10,000 of your closest friends. After the campfire was extinguished and the stools were cleared away, the band paid tribute to their friend Brad Arnold of Three Doors Down, who recently succumbed to his battle with cancer, with a heartfelt rendition of “Here Without You”.
From there, the amps were dialled back up, and the tail end of the set included heavy hitters “Just Like You” and “Painkiller”, while closing out on a fiery performance of “Riot”. It was a fantastic way to close out a night of hard-hitting Canadian hard-rock, which featured two staples of the post Can-con years. For all of those fans that were clamouring for a night of nostalgia, hits and hard rock, they left smiling, if not a little hard of hearing.
