Bringing Post American Grunge To Download
Bringing post American grunge to Donington via South Africa, Seether are a band that are sadly still known more for their lead singer’s association with Evanescence’s Amy Lee than anything else.
With a stampede of guitars duelling with anger doused drums, Seether mark their entrance onto the Download stage as ‘Because Of Me’ roars through the crowd, bolstered by singer Shaun Morgan’s menacing vocals that go from smooth and sedate to growling snarls within a blink of an eye. Packing a mighty punch, Seether jolts Donington to life before injecting it with the contagiously irresistible ‘Rise Above This’. Boasting a chorus that relentlessly forces all to dance along, ‘Rise Above This’ finds Morgan slightly emotional as he sings the oddly uplifting song that he wrote for his brother before his death. From this Seether give the crowd a chance to stamp and pound their way along to ‘Fake It’ that thumps its way across the reasonably sized crowd in front of the main stage before Morgan slams on the brakes with an acoustic version of ‘Broken’. Instantly discharging the aggression of the previous track, ‘Broken’ blankets the crowd in a layer of hushed silence as bodies sway slightly, drenched in the emotional beauty of the track that again seems to have affected Seether’s front man.
Fittingly for a man who sounds more like Kurt Cobain than the Nirvana front man ever did, Morgan even manages to slip in a cover of ‘In Bloom’, easily doing the original justice as his gravel tinged voice echoes through the crowd.
Seether’s past and associations may have been the only things people knew about them before Friday, but after this set they certainly provided more to talk about then a certain Ms. Lee.