Collective Soul @ Union County Music Fest 9/16/11 Collective Soul seems to be one of those bands that are seldom recognized by name, but have been generating singles since its inception in 1993. In fact, I recall seeing the band perform a few years back and, during the intro of each song a collective, “Oh, I love this song. I didn’t know this was Collective Soul” would meander through the crowd. I’ve been following the band since I was a kid and was very much anticipating the show at The Union County Music Festival. The atmosphere on that particular evening was perfect considering it was the first night of the year that truly felt like autumn, the fair itself was very nicely assembled and, the show was free. The opening act for the evening was Ed Kowalczyk from the band Live. I arrived about half way through his set but, I must say, he sounded excellent. I’m assuming that he played the majority of songs from his solo album earlier in the set because the back end of the set was mostly from Live’s “Throwing Copper” album. Collective Soul was fantastic. With many years of experience, Ed Roland is a consummate entertainer. Despite the interactive jokes with the audience regarding his age, he brings a great energy and really moves around the stage. The band does a great job of delivering an organic performance without subscribing to the theatre of arena rock. They sound identical to the records and seem to take pride in doing so, by jumping around from songs within their catalogue to improvised versions of cover songs. While playing the song “Hollywood,” they went into Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” ACDC’s “Thunderstruck,” and Van Halen’s “Dance the Night Away.” A large portion of the set was from the Dosage album, which, in my opinion, is their strongest as a whole. Take what you will from an anecdotal observation, but I felt that the entire band really seemed to step it up when they played Collective Soul classics, like “Gel” and “Where the River Flows.” -Matt Colligan www.collectivesoul.com