Oh, what a night. I just got back from Protest the Hero show and I’m still trying to find pieces of my face that were shredded off. (Oh, I’m so creative and witty).
The opening bands were, in this order: Fall From Grace, The Number Twelve Looks Like You, and Misery Signals. I wasn’t particularly familiar with any of these bands coming into the show, and quite frankly I don’t care much to become acquainted with any of them after seeing them live. Fall From Grace were pretty terrible if I’m being quite honest. They came out and immediately reminded me of an Avenged Sevenfold contemporary. I didn’t want to judge a book solely on its cover, so I tried to give them a good listening. About thirty seconds through the first song I found myself obsessively updating my twitter and checking Facebook on my Blackberry because I was so bored. They seemed like decent guys, they just weren’t for me. At the end of their set, the crowd was ripping them apart. I actually felt bad, but I can’t say that I disagreed with what they were yelling.
Next up on the line-up was The Number Twelve Looks Like You. Worst. Name. Ever. These guys were mildly entertaining. They’re mostly metalcore but a few of their songs had some nice, slow breakdowns that kept me interested and didn’t allow the screaming to become numbing. During the last song of their set, they brought some guy up on stage who admittedly never kissed a girl in his life. They picked two willing ladies from the crowd who gave this little guy his first two kisses in front of hundreds of people. The house was going insane for this man. He looked like he was about 12 years old, but he was loving it.
The final opener was a band called Misery Signals. Misery Signal fans were in the house tonight! And, I must admit they did have some of the cooler merch I’d seen. However, that’s pretty much where my compliments stop. The lead singer reminds me of this meat head I played football with in high school. If you’re into that music that’s hardcore just for the sake of being hardcore, then this is your band. They were tight and had a lot of energy, but the musicianship was lacking. The frontman was thrashing around like he was in a rap video and I think I saw their fans through up some gang signs of some sort…weird.
Now, for the whole reason I sat through the first two hours of nonsense, Protest the Hero. It was WELL worth the wait. They were absolutely insane! If you’ve read my review of PTH’s most recent album Fortress, then you know that I am a HUGE fan of this band. It was to my EXTREME enjoyment to see the intricacies and technicalities of the record being so impressively translated into a live setting. They got this started off with Fortress’ opener, Bloodmeat. Immediately, the pits started opening up and everyone was going nuts. Getting to see this band perform this music that I’ve been obsessed with for the past couple months gave me chills to no end. One of my only qualms with PTH was that some of the guitar work isn’t as clean as it should’ve been. I can’t say that I’m completely upset about this, because given the ridiculous difficulty of their music, this kind of comes along with the territory. However, judging from some of the videos that I’ve seen online, you could definitely tell that the band are getting a lot more comfortable with their parts, and they don’t let a few mess up stop the momentum of a song like I’ve seen them do before. Rody was in pretty good voice, but you could tell that it was the end of the tour and his voice had endured a lot. Still, RIDICULOUS vocals nonetheless.They did have some pretty cool stuff going on in between the songs of their set. At one point they were even playing a Billie Holliday song which was pretty bad ass. My favorite moment from the show was definitely the end of Palms Read. “For a million years, raise your glass. We’ll never answer where we came from!” During this part the crowd was “raising their glasses” and it was beautiful to hear them all singing along to this monumental ending to the song.
Overall, it was such a fun show. Protest the Hero picked up any slack that the prior bands had left behind. I’m so glad I ended up going because it was worth every penny, even the $20.00 I blew on a tee-shirt. I even ran into one of my old friends from Maryland at the end of the show! What a small world. See that, PTH – bringing the love.
I really can’t wait to see these guys again…
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