Has Milwaukee not suffered enough at the hands of Canada? First the Toronto Raptors break our collective hearts by beating the Bucks in the playoffs last year, and now our supposedly friendly neighbors to the north will sully our summer once again by sending us their most dubious import: Nickelback, which will perform at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater on Thursday, Aug. 27.
Stone Temple Pilots and Switchfoot will serve as the band's special guests, while probably wondering what god they upset so greatly to wind up billed underneath Nickelback.
OK, we've had some fun, but let's be honest: Much like "The Big Bang Theory" and Applebee's, as much as you may hate them, the reality is Nickelback is a really, really, ridiculously successful band. "All the Right Reasons," the 2005 album that the band will play from cover to cover on this particular tour, was a number one record that contained three top ten hits – including "How You Remind Me," which was Billboard's fourth highest selling song of the entire decade. And not that awards correlate exactly with quality, but Nickelback's been nominated for six Grammys – as recently as 2010! And including Record of the Year in 2003! (They lost to Norah Jones.) They may be a punchline, but they're a punchline that's made a whole lot of money, that still releases albums and that still performs to noteworthy crowds of fans. They've certainly made their dent on pop culture – even if, like a dent, you want them removed and forgotten about as soon as possible.
And come on, don't pretend like you don't have a Nickelback song stuck in your head now. Admit to yourself that you're muttering the lyrics to "Photograph" right now. To paraphrase the great critic Robert Warshow wrote, "A man listens to 'How You Remind Me.' The critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man."
Tickets for the show go on sale on Thursday, Jan. 23 at 10 a.m. at both Ticketmaster.com and the Amp box office. Now I'm off to take a cold shower for somewhat defending Nickelback in a public forum.
As much as it is a gigantic cliché to say that one has always had a passion for film, Matt Mueller has always had a passion for film. Whether it was bringing in the latest movie reviews for his first grade show-and-tell or writing film reviews for the St. Norbert College Times as a high school student, Matt is way too obsessed with movies for his own good.
When he's not writing about the latest blockbuster or talking much too glowingly about "Piranha 3D," Matt can probably be found watching literally any sport (minus cricket) or working at - get this - a local movie theater. Or watching a movie. Yeah, he's probably watching a movie.
