A Nickelback for your thoughts

Things are getting noisy in Boise, and that’s before the Canadian rockers Nickelback even fire up their guitars and pyrotechnics at the Idaho Center on June 13.

A concert preview in the Boise Weekly trashing the band has earned music critic Josh Gross plenty of notoriety.

Gross suggested other uses for the $45 cost of a ticket: buying a dozen Big Macs, doing 10 loads of laundry, “or you could buy 45 hammers from the dollar store, hang them from the ceiling at eye level and spend an evening banging the demons out of your dome.”

The preview generated more than 500,000 Internet hits in the first few days.

One typical post said, “Have fun sitting in your studio apartment while these guys make your annual salary in one night.” Gross concedes other bands are more deserving of criticism, “but they are not playing in Boise this week.”

In a followup post, Gross summarized some of the 200 replies to his column:

"In the past day, I have been told that I am a genius, a king amongst men and a hack that could be easily outdone by a one-armed cat. I should alternately win the Pulitzer and forcibly insert 45 pickles into my bum. There has been little middle ground."