Daughtry performed in the UK earlier this year, where they played two nights at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The tickets sold out immediately and proved how much love there is for them here in the UK and how much seeing them performing live in the UK means to their fans. Their show at the Roundhouse follows a massive world-wide tour, which saw them playing dates all over America, before visiting Germany and Sweden, but now it was our turn in London. Daughtry have been a rock and roll band since 2006 and in their native America, they are a huge band, who have sold millions of records and have been nominated for several Grammy awards and have won numerous prestigious awards. Over here in the UK, they have thousands of fans, yet we feel like their presence as a great band should be noticed by thousands and thousands more. With a somewhat limited amount of radio air play in the UK, it may be difficult for that to happen as quickly as they deserve, but we feel as if they are definitely heading in the right direction. Music lovers word of mouth is going around the UK like wild fire about this band, and considering their last album is their fourth, it’s deservedly about time.
We’re a huge fan of Daughtry’s first three albums, but we have to say that we love Daughtry’s latest album Baptized that little bit more and we were looking forward to catching them live at the Roundhouse, to hear Chris’ powerful and rugged rock voice in action. A huge crowd gathered really early on in the day outside the venue, with a long line established by 4:00pm, yet Daughtry were not due on stage until 9:00pm. Superman outfits and huge grins were fixed to the fans faces as they waited in the rain for a slice of Daughtry live and in action.
The first song of the night that set the tone of the evening was the rousing Baptized. From there on in, the energy in the gig was off the scale and the fans loved every moment. Baptized is more of a melodic rock album, yet Traitor gave us a pure rock hit, with plenty of feeling and anger! Song after song, the crowd just got more in to the gig and every soul in the Roundhouse were totally engrossed. Wild Heart was full of passion and it is little wonder, seeing as it’s Daughtry’s favourite song to sing and perform live, which Chris wrote about his wife, (among many) lucky lady! Before launching in to Battleships, Chris warned that we’d be signing this for the rest of the night “boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom” and they weren’t wrong, try getting that out of your mind once it’s in there!
They also performed some of their old work, including their classics Home and It’s Not Over, which got a huge reaction from the fans. Further highlights of the gig included an unplugged style version of Witness, where the rest of the band left the stage, albeit apart from the keyboard player and Chris, who performed together to give us chills as we heard it stripped down and bare. The band mentioned that during their meet and greet, a man proposed to his lady in front of the band (who did say yes!) and the band dedicated the song Start of Something Good to the couple, who were in the front row. Daughtry have so many incredibly real songs, they are authentic musicians who love their work, who perform with tons of energy and enthusiasm. Chris Daughtry as the lead frontman, with raw talent and coolness in abundance, with many funny quips, entertained the audience throughout the show.
The encore kicked off with our personal favourite song of theirs at the moment, the wonderful Waiting for Superman, complete with comic-book graphics playing behind them. Superman is a song that Chris wrote about his daughter and when you listen to the lyrics, you can see how much heart this man has. Following Superman, was the foot-stomping, slightly tongue in cheek and Lumineers-esque Long Live Rock ‘n Roll. “Long live rock, long live roll, long live big guitars and music for the soul”, indeed! Even those in the seated area of the Roundhouse got up off their feet to give the band a standing ovation. So there we have it, Daughtry put on the perfect gig with plenty of entertaining crowd interaction, amazing and powerful songs and tons of energy and enthusiasm. Daughtry fans in the UK would love to see Daughtry do a full length tour of the country and the band hinted that this may be a possibility in the future, we will have to wait and see (but we’re crossing our fingers that this happens!)
