I, the Breather started off the night with one of my favourite songs by them, Forgiven. For an opening band, they’re pretty well known and they really got the crowd moving in some of their songs. After Forgiven, they played Longevity and Bruised & Broken. I didn’t notice that vocalist Shawn Spann did both cleans and screams until I saw them tonight. I was impressed with the band’s overall performance, but I was especially impressed with Spann’s ability to hit all of his notes almost flawlessly. After Bruised and Broken, they finished their set with The Common Good, Mentalist, and Highrise. Next up was Texas In July. As soon as they started playing, I noticed that vocalist Alex Good seemed a little off tonight. Maybe he is starting to tire from the long tour or maybe he has a cold, but either way, he didn’t sound half as good as the other two times I had seen Texas In July. Half of the time he was just speaking the lyrics. Aside from the vocals, they sounded really good; the awesome setlist made up for the lack of vocal prowess as well. They played It’s Not My First Rodeo, Magnolia, Hook, Line, and Sinner, Our Freedom, 1000 Lies, One Reality, Dying World, and Elements. The third band to play tonight was Silverstein. I was never a huge fan of them, but lately I have grown to enjoy most of their songs. My favourite songs of the set were Sacrifice, The Artist, SOS, See Ya, Bill, and Your Sword Vs. My Dagger. They played See Ya, Bill three times, every time alternating instruments. It was pretty cool, but at the same time, kind of annoying hearing the same seven-second long song three times in a row. Silverstein was my least favourite band of the night, but they were still pretty good. Last, but most certainly not least, August Burns Red. For the past five years, they have been a band that I have always loved and at times they have been one of my favourite bands. After seeing their spectacular performance tonight, they have regained their title as one of my top five bands. They opened up with Empire, then played Meddler and Internal Cannon. During the second “salsa” part of Internal Cannon, I had tears in my eyes because I was so overjoyed. For the 30 seconds that my ears were blessed with that beautiful segment, I felt like I was in heaven. After coming back down to Earth, they played Cutting the Ties, Marianas Trench, Your Little Suburbia Is In Ruins, and Truth of a Liar. Then, they went off the stage. At this point, I was worried that they had to wrap up the show, even though it wasn’t too late. However, after a minute or so, they came back on stage and played Meridian, with the help of their guitar technician playing bass, which ultimately forced Dustin to temporarily be the 3rd guitarist. Meridian gave everyone a nice little break, but then the heavy songs came back into play. The next few songs were White Washed, Salt & Light, Poor Millionaire, Back Burner, and Leveler. After Leveler, there was a nice little drum solo that was about the same length as a typical song. To close out their set, they played Carpe Diem and Composure. I could go on and on about how perfect they were tonight or how perfect they are in general, but all I will say is JB and Brent are both amazing guitars, Jake is one of my favourite vocalists, Matt is by far my favourite, and one of the most skilled drummers in metalcore, and Dustin is one of the best metalcore backing vocalists to ever grace the Earth.
Links: I, The Breather – Texas In July – Silverstein – August Burns Red
