ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The singer/guitarist of a hard rock band that straddled the grunge movement and heavy metal to become among the biggest-selling acts of the 1990s is coming to Allentown.
Jerry Cantrell, who founded the band Alice in Chains, will perform a solo concert at 7 p.m. Sept. 2 at Archer Music Hall.
Opening the show will be industrial rock band Filter, which in the 1990s had two platinum albums and the Top 10 hit “Take a Picture.”
Tickets, the prices of which were not revealed, go on sale at 10 a.m. Thursday, May 22.Archer Music Hall website
Tickets, the prices of which were not revealed, go on sale at 10 a.m. Thursday, May 22.
The show will support Cantrell's most recent solo album, "I Want Blood," which was released in October. The album has produced a Top 10 Mainstream Rock hit, "Vilified," and the Top 25 hit "Afterglow."
The disc is Cantrell's fifth solo album. His first, 1998's "Boggy Depot," hit the Top 30 on Billboard's overall Albums chart and produced the Top 5 Mainstream Rock hit "Cut You In."
But Cantrell, 59, is better known for his work with Alice in Chains, which is best known for the songs “Man in the Box” and “No Excuses.” Its first three albums sold a total of 8 million copies.
He was the band's lead guitarist since it was founded in 1987, and has shared lead vocals since singer Layne Staley died in 2002.
One of hard rock's definitive acts
Alice in Chains was one of the definitive hard-rock acts of the 1990s, hitting double platinum in 1990 with its debut disc “Facelift,” which included “Man in the Box.”
It then hit quadruple platinum with its 1992 sophomore disc “Dirt,” which had the hits “Rooster” and “Down in a Hole.”
It again hit double platinum with 1995’s self-titled disc, which went to No. 1, as well as with a 1994 EP, “Jar of Flies.”
Overall, Alice in Chains has sold more than 14 million albums and has received nine Grammy Award nominations.Alice in Chains band history
After a long hiatus during which Staley died from a drug overdose, the band reunited with new singer William DuVall in 2006 and released the disc “Black Gives Way to Blues.”
That album went gold and produced two No. 1 songs — “Check My Brain” and “Your Decision.”
Overall, the band has sold more than 14 million albums and has received nine Grammy Award nominations, the latest for Best Engineered Album-Non Classical in 2014 for “The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here.”
Alice in Chains has not released an album of new music since 2018's "Rainier Fog." That disc peaked at No. 12 on the overall Albums chart.
The group played at Wind Creek Event Center, then called Sands Bethlehem Event Center, in 2013.
It also played to crowd of 4,000 as a Musikfest headliner in 2006, and headlined Musikfest again in 2015.
Supporting act Filter
Filter’s first two albums —1995’s “Short Bus” and 1999’s “Title of Record,” both sold platinum, with the latter peaking at No. 30 on Billboard’s overall chart.
That disc also included “Take a Picture,” as well as Top 20 Alternative hits “Welcome to the Fold” and “The Best Things.”
It’s third album, 2002’s “The Amalgamut,” had the Top 15 Alternative hit “Where Do We Go From Here.”
In all, the group has released seven discs, the last of which was “Crazy Eyes” in 2016, which hit No. 14 on the Alternative chart.
Its last charting hits were 2013’s “What Do You Say” and “Surprise,” both of which made the Top 40 on the Mainstream Rock chart.
Filter played at the former OneCenterSquare club in Easton in 2019.
