Review: On storm-free night, 3 Doors Down shouts out Jesus, and Creed calls out Trump rally

There was a lot to keep track of at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte on Wednesday — starting with, understandably, anxiety about the forecast.

Heading into the night’s Creed-3 Doors Down-Finger Eleven post-grunge-rock extravaganza, meteorology had been giving PNC performers and the amphitheater’s management fits for four days: Last Saturday, severe weather caused the mid-show cancellation of the inaugural Jam Fest rap concert; then on Tuesday, rock band Third Eye Blind was thwarted by thunderstorms that sent fans home early.

And thanks to a fresh set of ominous radar readings on Wednesday afternoon, less than an hour and a half before the scheduled start time PNC announced that Finger Eleven’s lead-off appearance was being bagged to speed up the show, in the hopes of beating the threat.

As it turned out, the decision-makers were being overly cautious.

But the call to cut things short also helped produce an exceedingly memorable moment on a night featuring several that probably will stick with devotees of all three bands for quite some time.

“I’m sorry we got to get to see you a little bit earlier than we thought we would,” 3 Doors Down frontman Brad Arnold said to the crowd four songs into its set, nodding to the scheduling change-up. That said, seeing the Mississippi band at all in 2024 has been something of a rarity — this was just its fourth show of the year so far, and two of those came on the Creed-centric Norwegian cruise that launched the headliner’s long-awaited reunion this past April.

So, Arnold and his bandmates seemed like they had energy to spare as they ripped and riffed through a collection of rock staples that included faithful, crowd-pleasing re-creations of early-2000s hits “Kryptonite,” “When I’m Gone” and “Here Without You.”

It wasn’t those songs, however, that caused the greatest stirs of 3 Doors Down’s set.

The first surprise (for more-casual fans of 3DD, at least) came midway through, after the group finished up a rendition of “Time of My Life.” Over the course of 2-1/2-minutes, Arnold had those more-casual fans Googling “Is 3 Doors Down a Christian band” as he worked his way through a stream of sermon-esque banter.

Explaining that he’d resigned himself a summer ago to giving testimony every time he walked on stage for the rest of his life — and lamenting that “we don’t all believe the same things ... wish we all did, but we don’t” — he told the Charlotte crowd:

“We’re surrounded by social media that’s constantly telling us that we’re not enough, and that we’ll never be enough, and we’ve got this voice inside our head that says, ‘You’ll never win.’ We all hear it, right? But my friends, we can win. We can win for one reason: Jesus Christ loves you.”

He went on to talk about John the Evangelist — “the one that Jesus loves” — and beseeched fans to “walk through every day of your life — whether you doubt it, or whether you feel it strongly that day — saying, ‘I am the one that Jesus loves.’”

After getting a reasonably sizable number of fans to repeat that phrase with him, he gave an amen and segued into “Away From the Sun.”

(Oh, and for the record, Google’s AI overview insists: “No, 3 Doors Down is not a Christian band.”)

But an even bigger and arguably more pleasant surprise came about 25 minutes later, as 3 Doors Down moved toward the final part of its set. With the skies still looking pretty calm and not a speck of rain falling through the air, Arnold grinned at the crowd and held out his hands, palms facing up.

“Unfortunately, because there’s a storm coming — and I seen it on the radar a while ago, looks like it’s gonna suck — we had to cut this a little short,” the 45-year-old singer said. “But I still think you guys should get to see three bands, right? So if you guys don’t mind, we’re gonna take about a five-minute break and let another band come out here.

“Because I wanna see ’em, too. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Finger Eleven live, and I wanna hear these boys come out here and play a song. Alright? We’ll see y’all in about five minutes.”

The stunned crowd then erupted as Finger Eleven ambled out and fired off an ultra-high-energy performance of its 2007 dance-rock hit “Paralyzer,” which was stolen by the mesmerizingly groovy, Peanuts-like dancing of long-haired and even-longer-bearded guitarist Rick Jackett.

By the time they finished, thousands of fans were cheering wildly, having gotten a tantalizing glimpse at what the weather forecast had deprived them of.

“That’s rock and roll right there!” Arnold shouted after tagging back onto the stage for 3 Doors Down’s finale.

And quite a finale it was: For closer “When I’m Gone,” the video screen in back displayed a giant “3” made up of stars and stripes; video panels in the middle of the stage projected a U.S. flag blowing in the wind and superimposed over aerial footage of Arlington National Cemetery; and even the lighting was patriotic, from the red, white and blue strobes to the LEDs ringing the rafters that were lit up like American flags.

Arnold’s last words were “God bless America!” and — having worked many up into a frenzy — a “USA! USA!” chant commenced as the band made its exit.

Just 23 minutes later, Creed made its entrance, walking onto a stage in the area for the first time since bringing its “Full Circle Tour” to Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord in May 2010.

“Thank you all for comin’ out so early,” frontman Scott Stapp said after opening with “Bullets” and “Torn.” And despite there being still no sign of bad weather whatsoever (unless you consider nearly 90-degree heat at sunset bad weather — and you might), he continued: “We’re running from the lightning, but we’re bringing you the thunder!”

Already, sweat was streaking down Stapp’s face, due to the soaring temps and humidity but exacerbated certainly by a testosterone-fueled performance. At the end of almost every song, as the male-dominated crowd roared, the 50-year-old singer would project physically as if he’d just won a boxing match or a gladiator fight, jiggling his shoulders or beating his chest, biceps rippling.

At the same time, there was a definite softness to him; a humility.

Teeing off “My Own Prison,” he preached, “We’re all gonna go through things in life — betrayal, death, sickness, self-inflicted trials and struggles. They’re called life lessons, my friend. It’s all about how you frame it. If you’re going through that prison, and you’re thinking, ‘I’m gonna learn what I can from this situation,’ that’ll give you purpose so that when you get to the other side you can help somebody else. When you have purpose, you can’t fail.”

Setting up “Never Die,” Stapp urged, “You know when you’re a kid and you feel like you can do anything? Don’t ever let that go. No matter what life brings. Don’t let ’em take your spirit. That’s what keeps us aliiiiiive . That’s what keeps you dancing in the rain.” (Still wasn’t raining yet, though, FWIW.)

Before “Faceless Man”: “We are so grateful you’ve given us all the opportunity to do this, what we love. And I hope you feel that we’re trying to give you everything we’ve got. It’s all about that connection, it’s all about coming together.”

He would build on that idea a few minutes later.

Whereas Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down had suggested a more-literal sort of come to Jesus moment, and a more-literal (and more-basic) love of country, Stapp went in a different direction — a direction that took a bit of a dig at Donald Trump.

“You know, I think the 19,000 of us here tonight could teach a little something to the political rally that’s just a few miles away from here,” he said, referencing the Republican presidential nominee’s campaign event happening simultaneously at Charlotte’s Bojangles Coliseum. “That is: We gotta focus on what brings us together , not what divides us.”

(From where I sat, I heard a decent amount of cheers but also a couple of scattered boos as he moved through this speech.)

“ We are the voice,” Stapp continued. “ We are the strength. We are this nation. Again, right now we’ve proved that 19,000 people can come together in a room and agree on music. So if you’re trying to build a relationship, you start on what you agree on, not what separates you. That’s how we change this country. ...

“No matter how small it is, find that small something that unites and not divides.”

It was hard, of course, not to think of Creed’s own divisions — its breakup, its members’ personal problems — and then the fresh reconciliation that led to them coming together again for this, its first tour in a dozen years.

Sure, one could quibble about the band’s decision to completely backload its setlist with its biggest hits — “With Arms Wide Open,” “Higher,” “One Last Breath” and “My Sacrifice” — but the payoff was remarkable. The energy and enthusiasm for their brand of growling, grinding rock held steady at a stratospheric level in that climactic section of the show, with Stapp hitting each track’s power notes with booming authority.

And in a canny move, right before “Higher,” Stapp and co-founding band member Mark Tremonti promised to give the latter’s guitar to whoever proved themselves “the loudest person in this house” while they cranked out the chart-topping anthem.

So things got LOUD, and stayed that way.

For five minutes, it truly felt like 1999 again. Like rock was not just alive, but at one of its zeniths.

A fan who identified herself as Gabby would land that guitar, by the way. But in the end, pretty much everyone associated with Wednesday night’s concert came away looking and feeling like a winner, with the exception of Finger Eleven’s biggest fans — and those who made the weather forecasts.

It never did storm.

3 Doors Down’s setlist

1. “Train”

2. “Not My Time”

3. “Loser”

4. “Duck and Run”

5. “Here Without You”

6. “Time of My Life”

7. “Away From the Sun”

8. “Road I’m On”

9. “Never Look Down”

10. “Be Like That”

11. “Let Me Go”

FINGER ELEVEN CAMEO: “Paralyzer”

12. “Kryptonite”

13. “When I’m Gone”

Creed’s setlist

1. “Bullets”

2. “Torn”

3. “Are You Ready?”

4. “My Own Prison”

5. “Never Die”

6. “What If”

7. “Weathered”

8. “Overcome”

9. “Say I”

10. “Faceless Man”

11. “One”

12. “What’s This Life For”

13. “With Arms Wide Open”

14. “Higher”

15. “One Last Breath”

16. “My Sacrifice”