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“Greensboro! You guys made me so proud to call this town my home!!! Thank u for everything! Now gotta get some sleep.”

That was Chris Daughtry’s 1 a.m. tweet, which came about two hours after his triumphant headlining appearance Thursday night at the Greensboro Coliseum.

He has every right to feel good about his Greensboro fan base, which showed up in strong numbers. Though the upper deck was mostly empty, the crowd of 7,089 comfortably filled the floor and lower arena.

Likewise, Greensboro is fortunate to claim such a talented and down-to-earth star as one of its own. Fame evidently has not gone to his head. At one point, he noted that the previous day had been his ninth wedding anniversary and dedicated a song to his wife.

Lasting an hour and 40 minutes, Daughtry’s performance was a mutual lovefest, as the crowd screamed and sang along. The band played all the hits and delved deeply into its latest album, “Leave This Town.” A cover of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight,” coming during the semi-unplugged portion of the show, was well-rendered.

There was a hitch, however. The negative aspect of Daughtry’s rise to arena-headliner status is that the jacked-up production values of his show have swamped the regular-guy quality of his music. Like Spinal Tap’s amplifiers, the knobs have been turned up to 11. Maybe even 12.

I wasn’t imagining that harsh overlay of echo on Daughtry’s voice, which masked him and the songs to the point that both were often hard to recognize. If ever a voice didn’t need electronic enhancement, it is Chris Daughtry’s powerful pipes.

Even the most stalwart fan couldn’t claim Thursday night’s renderings as definitive performances because of the obfuscating volume and bombast of the presentation. Daughtry was better as the opening act to Bon Jovi at the coliseum in 2008, when he wasn’t overexerting himself in the role of headliner.

On a personal level, Chris Daughtry came across in his usual low-key, grateful way. It was the sound and staging that did his songs a disservice, warping them into a crypto-metal cacophony, complete with periodic assaults of pyro — tongues of fire, showers of sparks and explosions.

The sound quality was disappointing; and it can’t be blamed on coliseum acoustics. The preceding bands, Cavo and Theory of a Deadman, sounded perfectly clear by comparison.

As for the opening acts, the four-man Cavo won over the crowd with their brief opening set, especially eliciting cheers for the hit song “Champagne.” The drummer for Daughtry, Greensboro’s own Joey Barnes, came out to join Cavo’s cover of Duran Duran’s “Come Undone,” and it was a flamboyantly fun moment in the show.

Theory of a Deadman, a Canadian foursome, were enormously entertaining, confounding expectations of what a post-grunge rock band ought to sound like. Frontman Tyler Connelly resembles some combination of ’50s greaser and ’80s hardcore figure, calling to mind images such as Henry Rollins, Social Distortion’s Mike Ness, John Travolta’s “Grease” character and Fonzie from “Happy Days.”

He and fellow guitarist Dave Brenner changed instruments for every song, keeping the roadies busy. The songs, especially “Bad Girlfriend,” “Hate My Life” and “By the Way,” were well-formed, hard-hitting and memorable.

But why weren’t they allowed an encore? For both Cavo and Theory of a Deadman, the lights and canned music were turned on a milli­second after the final note died out. Especially in the latter band’s case, the audience clearly would have been happy to hear more.

 

Contact Parke Puterbaugh at parkeputerbaugh@earthlink.net

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