Saints and Sinners Tour

Show Review
Theater of the Living Arts, Philadelphia, PA

If you had looked foward to another Saints and Sinners down in Asbury Park around this past Halloween, then you unpleasantly surprised with a "See You in '09" line on the website. Promoters took the line-up package, condensed it to four bands and traveled the county.

It was a little upsetting, but they did provide a pretty ecletic mix of bands and one act is a favorite of mine, so I definately had to be in attendance.

First up - Brokencyde. My sister was stoked and said they are hilarious live. I took a listen on the myspace and was amused, but knew I would only be able to listen to 2 or 3 songs before getting a headache.

We were late, so that's about how many we saw. The guys primarily stayed hidden in the light show they had set-up on stage, but the kids on the floor didn't care as all they wanted to do was dance.

It really felt as though they stole beats from Lil' Jon and were just kicking and screaming with vocals over it. Fun for the first song, annoying for any other ones.

Haste the Day was excellent. They're your typical metal/metalcore band, but who know how to get it done right.

At first, I wasn't too into them and just wanted to see Senses Fail, but the more you listened, the more their talent shone through. Especially when they played tracks off their new album, Dreamer.

I was surprised when the lead singer took a moment to thank God and talked about Jesus for a second and said fans should come over and chat with the band later. Cool.

Finally! It was Senses Fail time. I had been listening to the new album a lot lately and was very excited to see them again since their Fall Headlining tour. But things didn't feel right...

The floor was barely moving. The lead singer was either tipsy or took note of the bland crowd and wasn't as intense as last time I saw them. And again, drunk Jersey trash girls make me sick.

The music was on point. Between Heath, Garrett and Jason Black (Hot Water Music, now joins them live), everything has been sounding just amazing live. But as I said, their singer wasn't as electric as back on the headlining tour and I felt bad when his new love of telling jokes/funny stories really hit a sour note with the crowd.

They played the majority of the new album and a few from the previous albums, but had to overlook the EP as for some reason, THEY were not the headliners of the tour. Whoever did that, was wrong.

So the headliners of the night were Hollywood Undead. I haven't seen them before and have mixed feelings about them. It is a guilty pleasure and the music is catchy, heavy and contain those hip hop elements. However, I get very ultra-feminist when I have to hear guy refer to women as bitches for only so long.

There are six members and there was also an additional drummer on the stage. I will give it to them that the music sounds just as it does on the album, even better maybe, and the energy and crowd response is great for them. The one guy even took a tween boy on his shoulders for the first (or was it second?) song and carried him around on stage.

"Undead" and "California" are favorites of mine so that was cool they played them in the beginning, but it sucked you had to wait till the end for "No. 5," well that's not really a shocker.

Saints and Sinners turned out to be a great tour package. Great bands, with one interesting and unique first act, but the suckiest audience ever.

Was it like that for the majority of the stops? The Hollywood Undead kids took over the population, which is cool, but makes it less entertaining during the metal & post-hardcore acts.