Avenged Sevenfold @ KeyBank Center, Buffalo, NY 3-6-24

Buffalo, NY welcomed hard rock band Avenged Sevenfold (AKA: A7X) for the first show of the 3rd leg of the ‘Life Is But a Dream Tour.’ The band is still on tour supporting their 8th studio effort of the same name ‘Life Is But a Dream.’ Even though surprisingly the attendance was light, the band came out firing on all cylinders.

The band arrived at 9:05pm and went into the first track off of the new album called “Game Over. Next up was “Mattel.” The entire set was heavy based on the new record. It was cool to see Johnny Christ’s bass have a Mattel emblem on it. With this set, it should be noticed that were a lot of firsts. The band played a few new songs and dusted off rare gems to wet the appetite of the concert attendees. AX7 played the ballad “Roman Sky” off of ‘The Stage’ disc. It seemed vocalist M. Shadows was taken back a little by the crowd signing along and said “You know this?” Other tracks that usually don’t make it into the bands set but were played for the Buffalo audience were “Shepherd of Fire” and “Blinded in Chains.” The later was heh first time drummer Brooks Wackerman tackled the track live. I though Wackerman’s playing was exceptional all night. In my opinion, guitarist Synyster Gates stole the show. His leads and his fluidity going back and forth all night between various tempos on the metal tracks and ballads was exceptional! Shadows voice throughout the entire set sounded great as well!

The only complaint I didn’t like the dark lighting throughout. It made it hard visually to see what was going on throughout. Otherwise, I though the set was solid. The band didn’t seem to have any rust even though as previously mentioned it was the first show of the 3rd leg. Who knows, they may keep switching it up and dropping in rarely played gems?

Setlist:

Game Over

Mattel

After Life

Hail to the King

We Love You

Shepherd of Fire

The Stage

Roman Sky

Blinded in Chains

Bat Country

Nobody