Three Days Grace at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds -- August 4.
Friday, August 4, 8 p.m.
Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, 2815 West Locust Street, Davenport IA
Returning to the Quad Cities in support of 2022's Explosions, which Cryptic Rock called "an intense album you can listen to over and over and still find cathartic release of heartbreak and pain with each spin," the alt-rock and -metal talents of Three Days Grace headline the August 4 grandstand concert at the Mississippi Valley Fair, the group's credits including a half-dozen top-10 Billboard album smashes and more than a dozen chart-topping singles.
Having made their debut in Norwood, Ontario in 1997, the original iteration of Three Days Grace was called "Groundswell," a group that played in various local Norwood backyard parties and area establishments from 1993 to 1996. After that outfit broke up, its musicians Adam Gontier (guitarist and lead vocalist), Neil Sanderson (drummer and vocalist), and Brad Walst (bassist) regrouped as Three Days Grace, and upon landing in Toronto, they became acquainted with local producer Gavin Brown. The musicians gave him several years' worth of material that they had created, polished the songs, and crafted a demo album that they gave to EMI Music Publishing Canada. The record label wanted to hear more material, and with Brown producing, Three Days Grace wrote the song "I Hate Everything About You," which attracted the interest of several record labels and would eventually be a massive hit from the rockers' self-titled, double-platinum-selling 2003 album.
With Gontier leaving the group in 2013 and its present lineup finding lead and rhythm guitarist Barry Stock and lead vocalist/rhythm guitarist Matt Waist (Brad's brother) performing alongside Waist and Sanderson, Three Days Grace recorded six albums prior to Explosions, all released three years apart and all top-10 hits on Billboard's Canadian Albums chart: Three Days Grace in 2003, One-X in 2006, Life Starts Now in 2009, Transit of Venus in 2012, Human in 2015, and Outsider in 2018. The first three albums have been RIAA certified double-platinum, triple-platinum, and platinum, respectively, in the United States, and Three Days Grace has had 16 number-one songs on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, among them “Just Like You,” “Animal I Have Become,” “Chalk Outline,” and two titles from Explosions: “So Called Life” and “Lifetime.” Additionally, the group's musicians are the recipients of a Billboard Music Award, a Juno Award, three Loudwire Music Award, and were named Rock Artist of the Year at the 2019 iHeartRadio Music Awards.
Three Days Grace performs their Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds set at 8 p.m. on August 4, and $85-110 MVF Fun Cards are required for admittance into any and all Grandstand concerts this summer. For more information on the concert and the Mississippi Valley Fair, call (563)326-5338 and visit MVFair.com.
