Music: {allcanada} Detroit golf-claps Nickelback's football show

Thursday, November 24, 2011

{allcanada} Detroit golf-claps Nickelback's football show

DETROIT – Three weeks of protests gave way to three minutes with Nickelback on Thursday, as the Canadian band rolled through a brisk halftime set at the Detroit Lions' Thanksgiving game.

Nickelback, a chart-topping band that often seems as much loathed as loved, had been the target of a high-profile Web protest in the weeks leading up to the game. More than 55,000 people digitally signed a petition asking the NFL to select a different act, denouncing Nickelback's music as color-by-numbers corporate rock.

"Detroit is home to so many great musicians and they chose Nickelback?!" read the petition, which was started by a University of Michigan graduate student.

The overall reaction Thursday was tepid from the tens of thousands inside Ford Field, but cheers outnumbered the jeers as Nickelback performed its new single, When We Stand Together, backed by flames, fireworks and about 1,000 local dancers and moshers.

Behind sunglassed singer Chad Kroeger and his bandmates, fans in the stands held colored cards to spell out "LIVE UNITED" — a nod to halftime presenter United Way.

Indeed, the boos had been notably louder minutes earlier when the Lions finished the first half with a 7-0 deficit and unused timeout against the Green Bay Packers. The Lions ended up losing the game, 27-15.

Lions fans arrived Thursday at Ford Field with mixed feelings. Some said they were embarrassed by the three-week campaign and felt sorry for the band. Others sympathized with protesters. Many were unaware of the protest altogether.

"It'll be the time to go to the bathroom, that's for sure," said Adam Pilarski, 20. "But why should Nickelback care? They're probably getting thousands and thousands of dollars for this."

Mark Elias of the Boy Scouts' Great Lakes Council was the volunteer coordinator for the halftime show, a role he has held for nine years.

He said Nickelback members had been in good spirits at Wednesday's soundcheck, where they lingered for half an hour to sign autographs and chat with volunteers.

"It's the first band in nine years that's actually stayed around and mingled," Elias said.

Thursday's show was to benefit the United Way, including the "Nickelback Gives a Quarter Back" campaign in which the band is donating 25 cents — up to $100,000 — for each person who pledges to volunteer with the United Way as a reader or tutor (liveunited.org/nickelback).

All in all, it seems unlikely that Nickelback is sweating the backlash: The group's seventh album, Here and Now, was released Monday and is on track to debut at No. 2 with at least a quarter-million copies sold, according to Billboard.