Collective Soul w/ Safetysuit and Ryan Star

Though Collective Soul weren’t the biggest band of the alternative-rock era, they carried themselves as if they were. Their signature song, “Shine,” was a lofty epic about faith, and other hits like “December” and “The World I Know” updated the power-ballad for modern-rock audiences. In an alternate reality, Collective Soul might have been as big as U2and indeed, singer Ed Roland seems to be channeling Bono on the band’s latest single, “Staring Down,” from their upcoming album, Rabbitbut as alt-rock radio stations suffered their nu-metal identity crisis in the late ’90s then began dying off this decade, Collective Soul were left without an obvious radio base. They still record songs that sound like hits, but without a radio format to support them, those songs are like trees falling in a forest.