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Brent Porche

MMRBQ Flashback: Backstage with Godsmack

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Author Brent Porche
"Welcome Back New Jersey!" Sully Erna and Godsmack brought their "Best of Times World Tour" back to Camden for the last night of their 2023 tour.

Today (2/7) is Sully Erna’s birthday, and we’ve had the pleasure of speaking with him many times over the years at WMMR. We’re flashing back to an interview from the MMaRchives that happened in 2017 when Godsmack headlined the MMRBQ.

Before their fiery ‘RBQ set, Brent Porche and Jacky Bam Bam sat down backstage with Sully alongside Godsmack drummer Shannon Larkin. Their conversation covered everything from the origin of the band’s name (no, they’re not named after that Alice In Chains song), the blues, our least favorite words (is it “moist” or “cream”?) and Sully’s love of blues artists like Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis and Amy Winehouse. Plus: who in the Erna family makes the best meatballs?

RELATED: 12 Albums That Turn 20 in 2024

The Godsmack fellas told us about their earliest memories of Philadelphia, like their first gig in the city “at a roast beef joint” (but now they’re playing our big barbecue!). Sully was stoked to run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art a la Rocky, quipping, “I did it better than Stallone!”

(Originally Posted June 2017)

 

All four of the guys at the table – Shannon and Sully and Brent and Bam Bam – are drummers, so of course they talked about the live drum battles that are a staple of every Godsmack concert: Batalla De Los Tambores.

Fast forward to the present: the band have been on a victory lap since 2023 and into 2024. Lighting Up The Sky is their eighth and final album, with the group indicating that even though they’re still bursting with energy, they want to go out on a high note with Godsmack and gracefully move on to other projects.

The last time we saw Sully and Godsmack on stage in the Philly area was last fall at the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden, NJ. Check out Brent’s photos from the gig below.

Godsmack & Extreme at Freedom Mortgage Pavilion [PHOTOS]

Sully and the boys of Godsmack made good on their promise to bring their “Best of Times World Tour” back to Camden, NJ and the Freedom Mortgage Pavilion after Mother Nature and a severe storm had other plans earlier this summer. This time around they brought their Boston-area brothers in Extreme along with them.

Extreme is touring in support of their brand-new album SIX that was released back in June. They had been on the road most of the summer with Living Colour on their “Thicker Than Blood 2023 Tour”. They had so much fun on the tour, that they added another leg of it set to kick-off in 2024, with a stop at the Tropicana Casino in Atlantic City on Saturday January 27th.

Godsmack is touring in support of their 8th, and possibly final, studio album Lighting Up the Sky, released earlier this year via BMG. And though this show was the last night of Godsmack’s 2023 tour, Sully mentioned from the stage that the band would be back on the road as early as February of 2024 with a whole new show and tour.

Highlight of the night, and quite possibly the whole tour, was Godsmack and Extreme teaming up for a blazing rendition of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”, which you can view here.

Godsmack “Best of Times World Tour” @ Freedom Mortgage Pavilion setlist

  1. When Legends Rise
  2. 1000hp
  3. Cryin’ Like a Bitch
  4. What About Me
  5. Surrender
  6. You and I
  7. Awake
  8. Red, White & Blue
  9. Voodoo
  10. Batalla de los Tambores (Included Back In Black, Walk This Way, Enter Sandman, Moby Dick, and Tom Sawyer in the medley.)
  11. Whatever
  12. Highway to Hell (AC/DC cover) with Extreme

Encore:

  1. Under Your Scars (In dedication to Godsmack’s nonprofit the “Scars Foundation,” and the rockers who have passed away.)
  2. Bulletproof
  3. I Stand Alone

Extreme “Thicker Than Blood Tour 2023” @ Freedom Mortgage Pavilion setlist

  1. It (‘s a Monster)
  2. Comfortably Dumb
  3. Decadence Dance
  4. #REBEL
  5. Am I Ever Gonna Change
  6. Play With Me (Intro’d with Queen’s “We Will Rock You”)
  7. Midnight Express
  8. More Than Words
  9. Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (James Brown cover)
  10. Cupid’s Dead (with Nuno playing a bit of Van Halen’s “Eruption” in the middle of the song)
  11. Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee / Get the Funk Out
  12. RISE

Thanks to Bill Raymond of Digital Noise Mag for the killer shots!

Catch Brent Porche on-air and online weekdays between 3PM – 7PM on WMMR. Brent loves to celebrate important musical anniversaries and milestones on my show, especially on Double Shot Tuesdays! He is honored to continue to the legacy of ‘MMR’s Local Shots Artist of the Month feature every Wednesday on-air at 6:30pm and via the Local Shots Headquarters page online, anytime at WMMR.com.

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