Gig review: 3 Doors Down, Picture House, Edinburgh

HAD the very last image Mississippi pop-metal outfit 3 Doors Down left us with been the one that stayed in audience members’ minds, they would have left with a very skewed image of this show.

With the encore only a song old and somebody off in the wings seemingly telling the band their time was up, baseball-capped singer Brad Arnold was having none of it. “We might get shut off halfway through,” he yelped, “but we’re playing one more.”

The following Believer was the most breathlessly punky song of the evening, with a rebellious segue into the chorus of Judas Priest’s Breaking the Law midway through. It was almost enough to have us believe these boys are rule-breakers… but not quite. More or less the rest of the show was an onslaught of ballads whose emotional depths were in proportion to the levels of repressed masculinity they seemed to be unpeeling.

In Arnold’s wholehearted but utterly polished delivery this music reminded of Bon Jovi or the Red Hot Chili Peppers at their most balladeering, but it wasn’t unpleasant for all that.

They’ve sold literally millions in the last decade and filled the house here, but there was a personalised efficiency to 3 Doors Down’s broad-stroke sentiments during signature tunes It’s Not My Time and Kryptonite which readily explained why beery men were swaying along in brotherly arms with one another throughout.

Rating: ***