Alter Bridge, Wembley Arena - review - Music - Arts

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After seven years and three albums, Alter Bridge's audience has collapsed in their homeland: the Florida grunge titans' current album, ABIII, barely scraped the Top 20 and three of the quartet have been forced to re-form their old group Creed. In Britain, though, ABIII swept to Number 1 and they now play arenas. "Oh my God, this is what I dreamed of in my bedroom when I played guitar with a tennis racket," gushed singer Myles Kennedy, gazing over Wembley in the startled manner of a 14-year-old boy who had just secured his first date. "I think I've just wet myself." Sometimes it's best to seize the moment and say nothing.

In truth, this particular moment was clutched rather than seized. They were too static to utilise the big stage effectively and for all Kennedy looking like Foo Fighter Dave Grohl and sounding like the smiley son of Soundgarden's Chris Cornell and Guns 'N' Roses leader W.Axl Rose, they remained untouched by greatness, never shy of filling a musical hole with instrumental widdling.

A flotilla of obtrusive cameramen following their every move (they were recording a DVD, but too mean to provide big screens) made for a distinctly dislocated feel. But when their often spellbinding power met their undoubted ear for a melody on Ghost Of Days Gone By and All Hope Is Gone, they were a galloping force to be reckoned with. Kennedy's rapturously received acoustic slot offered a change of pace, and who could not have a sneaking admiration for a band who gently introduced Coeur d'Alene as eulogising "a place of solace", only for it to sound like a herd of pneumatic drills?

Alter Bridge
Wembley Arena
HA9 OAA