Toursick 2010 - 4/20/2010 – First Avenue

By: Nick Habisch

 

On April 20^th, 2010, me and some friends made our way to Minneapolis to First Avenue to see A Day To Remember on their Toursick tour. The other bands that would be playing were Go Radio, Enter Shikari, Silverstein and August Burns Red. This show was sold out and by the time we got there the lines to the door were stretched for a block.

Go Radio kicked off the show and I don’t have much to say about them. They played a typical pop-punk style that sounded like every other band in this genre. I am not a fan of the pop-punk style because every song by every band seems to sound very similar and this was true for Go Radio. They got a decent crowd response, but it was obvious everyone was there for other bands.

Enter Shikari was up next and I was instantly in love. There weird style of synth heavy metalcore was intriguing and they had a ton of energy and knew how to get the crowd going. They are a band that I will make a point to see when Warped Tour comes to Minnesota this summer.

Silverstein was the next band and was a letdown from Enter Shikari. Their vocalist seemed to be having trouble and his harsh vocals were very lackluster. Musically they were interesting, playing a variety of styles from slow pop ballads to fast punk numbers. If it were not for the awful vocal performance I would have likely enjoyed this band.

The only true Metal band on this show was August Burns Red and they showed why they are one of the rising stars in music today. From their heavy breakdowns to the guitars shredding to the insane drumming, August put on an amazing show. I have seen them multiple times, and every time they seem to be tighter and tighter in their playing. Playing tracks from their newest album Constellations and their earlier album Messengers, they brought down the house. I was a little disappointed by the lack of any tracks off Thrill Seeker, but they still gave the most technically impressive show of the night. I highly highly recommend everyone see this band at least once.

Finally it was time for the headliner. A Day To Remember isn’t technical in their music but they sure as heck are fun. This band had a ton of energy and really knew how to get the crowd into it. The vocals were solid, actually much better then I was expecting, and the musicians made up for their lack in technical skill by moving around the stage a lot. They played a long set, with various tracks from Homesick and For Those Who Have Heart. Seeming to focus more on the heavy tracks, they had everyone singing along, but then surprisingly their first encore song was the acoustic based If It Means Alot to You. They followed this up with A Plot To Bomb the Panhandle, which is my favorite A Day to Remember song and provided a fitting end to a great concert.

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