On a cold, rainy Tuesday night at the end of November, there isn’t much to do in Western New York. So why not head out to The Rapids Theatre in Niagara Falls and get your face ripped off by Five Finger Death Punch, All That Remains and Hatebreed?
The first band up we are covering was Hatebreed. Lead singer Jamey Jasta got the crowd going as they opened up with “The Threshold”. They tore through their 12 song set in 40 minutes, taking time to interact with the crowd and made a couple of song dedications. One was “Last Breath”, which was dedicated to the late Cory Smoot of GWAR who died earlier this month. Jeremy asked that every left fist remain in the air for the entire song. The other dedication was “As Diehard As They Come”, which Jamey dedicated to what he called “the baddest motherfuckers in the world”, our troops. When they finished with “I Will Be Heard”, the chant of “Hatebreed” began. The band came up to center stage and took a bow, after showering the crowd with guitar picks and drumsticks, next up was All That Remains.
When All That Remains took the stage, I was expecting a drop-off in energy. From the first note to the last, Lead Singer Philip Labonte kept the frantic crowd involved by encouraging them to start a mosh pit right of the bat. Without much crowd interaction to speak of, they powered through their set. The highlight of the performance were guitar solos by Oli Herbert and Mike Martin, these two guys can blur a fret board and delight an audience. When they wrapped up their set, Labonte led the crowd into a 5FDP chant.
After a 30 minute wait, 5FDP took the stage. They ripped right into their latest hit “Under And Over It”, the crowd sang along with vocalist Ivan Moody. Not letting up they followed up with “Salvation”, and the crowd surfing began. I have never witnessed so many people spilling over the barricades, it was insane. After they performed “Bad Company”, Ivan took a minute to address the crowd stating “we played Pittsburgh, Philly, and New Jersey, and you guys are kicking the shit out of them!”
At one point, Ivan pulled 3 lucky kids from the crowd to join him on stage. After trying to get them to “flip the bird”, he settled on letting them hold up the horns. Ivan turned to the crowd and shouted “say hello to the future of heavy fucking metal!” Following Jeremy Spencer’s drum solo, Ivan again took a break to point out a couple of new friends of his. He thanked John from The Anchor Bar(the inventor of the Buffalo Wing), in downtown Buffalo for “the hot fucking wings”, he also pointed out another John, and said “Tara, my friend John here has a question for you”, at which point John turned to Tara and proposed to her. The crowd errupted as she responded with a yes. This was the last thing i expected at a FFDP show but very cool nonetheless! The last song of their set was “Burn It Down”. Ivan said he only had a chance to meet about 30 people tonight, and that wasn’t enough. This last song was their chance to surf up to front in 2 lines and shake his hand. Again reminding them to respect security and the people behind them, he said with a smile “after I shake your hand, be polite, and kindly get the fuck out of the way.”
Coming back out for their encore of “The Bleeding”, Ivan thanked everyone for coming out, and lead them into singing with him. Closing out the show with a bow, they distributed guitar picks, drumsticks and water bottles as they left to a 5FDP chant.
After spending a night in the pit of the Share The Welt Tour, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s aptly named, as I got my share of kicks and punches and a small welt on my right eye.
Set Lists:
5FDP:
Under and Over It
Salvation
American Capitalist
Hard to See
The Way of the Fist
No One Gets Left Behind
Bad Company (Bad Company cover)
White Knuckles
(drum solo)
Far From Home
Bulletproof
Never Enough
Burn it Down
Encore:
The Bleeding
All That Remains:
Hold On
This Calling
Forever in Your Hands
Dead Wrong
The Air That I Breathe
Now Let Them Tremble
Six
The Last Time
Some of the People, All of the Time
Won’t Go Quietly
Aggressive Opposition
Two Weeks
Hatebreed:
To the Threshold
Never Let It Die
This Is Now
Everyone Bleeds Now
In Ashes They Shall Reap
Live for This
Proven
Destroy Everything
Smash Your Enemies
As Diehard as They Come
Last Breath
Empty Promises
I Will Be Heard
We would like to thank Rikki Zazula from Adrenaline PR for alllowing Backstageaxxess.com to review the show.
