Show & Tell - Cold, live at Fire in Philadelphia

COLD
Live @ The Fire
Philadelphia, PA 03.04.03

As luck would have it the venue was small. And when I say small I mean small.

So small the band was forced to play an acoustic set. That’s where the luck part comes in.

Though there were initial shouts of disappointment from some idiots in the crowd, the intimacy of an acoustic set, especially in a club four times the size of my living room, was actually a rare opportunity to enjoy Cold music for what it really is - brutally honest, heartfelt and penetrating.

Front man Scooter Ward sat center stage, guitarist Terry Balsalmo just to his left; an ashtray between them.

Stripped down to six strings, a microphone and minimal lighting, the duo, starting without band mates Jeremy Marshall, Sam McCandless and Kelly Hayes, kicked the set off with "End Of The World."

Scooter then took a moment to explain the reasons for the acoustic set [insert the aforementioned idiots in the crowd here], apologized [not necessary but thanks] and told us "This is for you. Thanks for being our fans." You’re welcome, Scooter.

The night took on a VH1 Storytellers vibe as he gave us the story behind "Bleed," the next song to be performed. Still [I’m guessing] stinging from some negative comments he’d read online about their new single "Stupid Girl," you could actually feel him needing us to understand how much he puts into these songs. These aren’t just words he’s singing, they are his heart, his soul, his blood. This isn’t just some wannabe in a room somewhere, stringing together a bunch of words that rhyme and fit. These are windows into his life; cathartic sentiments sung to us that he couldn’t express anywhere else.

Sung to us.

"No One," a song written about his mother, followed "Bleed." There was an uncomfortable moment where he asked those talking to go in the other room. The air had taken on the feel of a recital and, in agreeance with his outburst, there really wasn’t any place for conversation. He’d sucked us in while we weren’t looking, a part of his world now. I wished the guy behind me would stop talking. He did.

Scooter and Terry were joined by Jeremy and Sam for the next 3 songs, all off their upcoming 3rd release. Apparently they’d brought just one acoustic guitar on the road with them so Kelly took his place in the back of the club, heckling the others in-between songs.

The new songs were wonderful [they performed "Suffocate," "Rain Song" and "Stupid Girl"]. Though it was difficult to tell with an acoustic set, they sounded not quite as dark as previous material, at least musically, and you could see/hear them pushing against their parameters, especially in regards to tempo and pitch. More on the new stuff later...

"Gone Away" was next, a song about Scooter’s daughter and the difficulty of being away from her. The set should have ended there with "Wicked" but a cry of "Ugly" from Cold mainstay Amy C prompted this interesting response from Scooter. "Is that Amy? Okay then, I guess we have to play it."

For me what followed was the most poignant moment of the night. Taking us back to a time when he’d just quit Grundig and had become very sick [with Crone’s disease], Scooter talked about writing "Ugly," about locking himself away, about not being able to look at himself [the illness had caused severe weight loss].

You can enjoy the music, you can relate to the words, you can say he speaks for you... But it really took that one moment, seeing the songwriter completely vulnerable and open to us, to really get what he’s putting into this. A moment later, tears imminent, he was pulling out of the story - "let’s get out of that real quick." Too late, Scooter, you already tugged on our hearts.

"Wicked" followed, Scooter and Terry again accompanied by Sam onstage, and they stayed on to do "Strip Her Down" at the crowd’s behest.

Following the set, while the band did a meet-and-greet with anyone who stayed, the club played "Year Of The Spider" in its entirety for us.

I was pleasantly surprised. Musically the sound is still very much Cold but it seems far more accessible [read: radio friendly], more up-tempo and much, much fuller. The production value is high and the result is a larger, more textured sound. Vocally its not so much a departure as a continuing journey... This is still Scooter Ward singing but he’s stretching his voice more, exploring the edges of his range.

I can’t speak to the rest of the dates on this tour, I can only say I’m glad we picked Philly as the show to catch. In retrospect it feels as if we witnessed something special. Unprepared to play the new songs acoustically, Scooter and Terry had scrambled at sound check to figure out the best way to approach them.

And that night, bereft of excess and with no place to hide, Scooter Ward sat on a bar stool and opened up his world to us; welcoming us in with tattooed arms.

He thanked us for being there... That’s probably what we should have been saying to him.

story by scott sisti