Nickelback has cliches down cold

DALLAS -- Canada’s Nickelback, fronted by the lanky Chad Kroeger, has all those rock band cliches down pat. Let’s see: wink-and-grin talk about sex and drugs? Check. Cursing onstage? Check. Explosions and flaming pyrotechnics? Check. Drinking just for fun? Check.

In about two hours Saturday night, Kroeger and his fellow ’Backers gave the packed Superpages.com Center a show heavy on stereotypes and radio-ready tunes. For all of Kroeger’s attempts at being cool and irresponsible (he giddily kept commenting on the wafting marijuana smoke), he’s still the lead singer of a group that has sold 18 million albums in the United States and certainly keeps tabs on its growing mainstream-chart hits.

All of that said, Nickelback was entertaining, particularly when it performed cuts from the new Dark Horse CD. Those songs, such as Something In Your Mouth, Gotta Be Somebody, Next Go Round and Burn It to the Ground, are catchy, hearty rockers with huge pop hooks.

That pretty much describes much of Nickelback’s repertoire. Since breaking big stateside with 2001’s No. 1 pop hit How You Remind Me from the 6-million-selling Silver Side Up, these guys have made sure to raise the commercial ante each time.

So it was kind of intriguing to hear Kroeger sing Rockstar, a staple from 2005’s 7-million-selling monster disc, All the Right Reasons.

He must have written those lyrics about “a front door key to the Playboy mansion” and a bathroom that he can “play baseball in” with tongue firmly in cheek, right? Or did he? He is exactly what he’s singing about.

Anyway, there’s not much use in trying to psychoanalyze Nickelback. When the band played the rocking high school anthem Photograph and the booming power ballad Far Away, all that really mattered is that it cranked it up.