By: Jesse Perez
Alice In Chains is back and traveling on tour for summer 2022 and their latest stop was at the Cynthia Woods Mitchel Pavilion in The Woodlands, Texas. A tour that was announced back in March of this year along side other popular rock groups, Bush and Breaking Benjamin joined in on the fun.
Any rock fan from the Houston area can appreciate how killer of a lineup that is, especially having the opportunity to see the infamous group Alice In Chains. One of my favorite bands listened to growing up as a young kid. My father was my main influence on music as a child and I quickly gravitated to his love for classic rock. But every so often, I would hear something that just had a little different sound to it, and that was that northwestern grunge rock sound provided by groups like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains.
Which was the group I ended up liking the most, so getting the chance to witness them perform live for the first time was a dream come true.
The venue was just as amazing as I remember as well. All my childhood memories come running back to the day I got to see KISS perform there when I was around ten years old. I didn’t remember just how jam packed it would get there, but I sure was reminded when I walked back and forth through the venue to appreciate the crowd. Hearing them sing along to one of the first most popular songs, Them Bones, playing and at that moment was pretty astounding. As the show continued, I was waiting in anticipation for songs like Man in the Box and Nutshell, and boy did my patience pay off for all these years waiting to hear those songs in person.
Although, of course, the band wasn’t performing with the late great frontman Layne Staley, who was apart of the inception of Alice In Chains in 1987. There was still guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell and Sean Kinney, original founding members of the band, still performing at their peak. William Duvall, current lead vocalist who’s been part of the group since 2006, put on an outstanding performance matching what I’ve been so accustomed to hearing in the voice of Layne Staley.
When Nutshell played, all I could think about was Staley’s performance of the song on MTV Unplugged, which ended up being one of his final times performing. That song will always bring tears to my eyes. But that night, they were happy tears, because seeing all the bright cellphone lights lighting the crowd showed just how much people love this band, including myself.
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