Light the Torch
This band is known because of frontman Howard Jones, who used to be in the popular American melodic metalcore band Killswitch Engage. I do like Killswitch Engage. I do not like Light the Torch, despite listening through every song they have released. Their performance was okay, but it was nothing special. Nothing about me stuck out about the instrumentation at all. I could hardly hear Howard's vocals because he had his hand firmly grasping the head of the mic. The crowd didn't seem into the music much. One thing I, my brother, and my friend did notice was how crowded the venue was during their set. The whole venue was packed and oversold. This stuck out to me more than the band's flat performance.
Fit For A King
This is the fourth time I've seen this band, and each time they continue to deliver a highly energetic performance. Vocalist Ryan Kirby is always yelling at the crowd to do some crazy stuff. His vocals are always on point, as were the backing vocalist's (also the bassist, I believe). This is one of those bands that is just pure fun to listen to, with hard-hitting breakdown after hard-hitting breakdown. The crowd was ready to party during their set, and they showed up. Circle pits, push pits, crowd surfers - they were there, and only getting hyped up for the next band. The setlist for this band, might I add, was pretty good. I mean, I love the new stuff. I like 'Deathgrip,' their previous album. They only played stuff from these two, however. I would've loved to hear their song "Slave to Nothing" so I could yell out "I'M A SLAVE, I'M A SLAVE TO NOTHING, UGH!" I definitely recommend seeing this band live, if you can.
Ice Nine Kills
If you've read my previous blogs, it's no secret I like these guys a lot. They need no introduction. Well, actually, they thought they did. Before they went on stage, they had a massive curtain blocking the stage with a movie-rating projection on it similar to one that you'd see prior to a movie trailer, but in their own style. It read "IX: PSYCHOS ONLY." After what felt like forever, the band finally came on, playing the intro back-tracking to the song 'Thank God It's Friday' before dropping the curtain and exploding with some crushing instrumentals. They went on to play 12 songs from their newest album 'The Silver Scream,' including the brand-new deluxe edition songs, 'Your Number's Up' and a cover of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.' They also played five songs from 'Every Trick in the Book,' including the ballad 'Tess-Timony' and my favorite song by them 'Me, Myself and Hyde.' They also pulled out an old song on this tour, another one of my favorites by them by the name of 'The Fastest Way to a Girl's Heart Is Through Her Ribcage.' This song had not been performed for three years prior to this tour.
I feel like I need to talk specifically about their stage show here, too. This was my ninth time seeing this band, They'd undergone major lineup changes since I've first seen them in 2016, leaving vocalist Spencer Charnas as the only member I've seen perform with the band all nine of those times. However, every new band member was completely immersed in the band's horror-movie-themed show. With some songs on the setlist, the band took a couple minutes off stage to change their outfits. Notably, Spencer would dress as different horror movie antagonists. He dressed up as Michael Myers for 'Stabbing in the Dark.' He dressed Ghostface for 'Your Number's Up,' which also saw him sneak up on a mannequin-looking girl on stage and "kill" her as part of the show. The craziest costume was when he dressed up as Pennywise for their song 'IT is the End.' Spencer was in full costume and makeup for this one and even pulled out the clown horn for the song.
Please do yourself a favor and see this band. They put on a killer show.
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