Rock ’n’ roll is dying, and its murderers are coming to Raleigh.

Nickelback, the band the world loves to hate, announced yesterday that they were touring this summer to celebrate the 15th anniversary of All The Right Reasons. The international tour—they go to Canada once—kicks off in Raleigh at Coastal Credit Union Music Park on June 19.

The group will be performing All The Right Reasons in its entirety, so you’ll be able to hear “Photograph” and “Rockstar” the way the Lord intended—surrounded by sweaty 30-something Greek Life Survivors chugging $10 Miller Lites and making out like teenagers while listening to Chad Kroeger croon with a voice that sounds like the human version of a truck revving its engine at a stoplight before turning into a Walmart.

If there is a hell, this is its waiting room. For most of you. 

And with that out of the way, a confession: In 2012, Black Keys drummer Patrick Karney told Rolling Stone that rock music is dying because people are OK with Nickelback being the biggest rock band in the world. I’m not sure this is entirely correct. 

In 2017, “Into the Night”—Kroeger’s duet with Carlos Santana—was on my top-songs-of-the-year list. 

See, my best friend and I started listening to the Canadian cretins in our sophomore year of college, mostly as a joke. We played their hits in our home, Franklin Street bars, the kitchen of the restaurant we worked at, at an acquaintance’s birthday party in his fraternity house, etc. Then, slowly, this Nickelback thing went from being ironic to, well, not so ironic: I couldn’t escape the group that became the very rock stars they parodied in “Rockstar.” I maybe even … liked it? I mean, their songs are pretty catchy.

NO, YOU SHUT UP. 

As happens whenever the world becomes convinced of something, there’s a reaction, and so I’ve seen a few hot takes arguing against Nickelback’s spot as The Worst Band of All Time. (Save some love for Maroon 5, which is also coming to Raleigh this year.) Looking at Billboard’s top rock songs of the 2010s, it’s impossible to blame Nickelback for the pitiful plight of rock—they didn’t even have a song in the top 50. Cast your eyes instead at Imagine Dragons and twenty-one pilots. 

So line up the sitter and buy tickets here. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Lawn tickets start at $38, but you can get an orchestra seat for $200+. (You were all MBAs, you can afford it.)

In the meantime, let’s all reminisce about the time Donald Trump used a Nickelback meme to attack Joe Biden, and Warner Music Group got it deleted for copyright infringement.

Contact digital content coordinator Sara Pequeño at spequeno@indyweek.com. 

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