I arrived at the show just as Thank you Scientist had finished. They may have been the best band of the night. Woven War was no energy, AILD lite, metalcore rubbish. All you could hear was the bass. With two killer lead guitar players, none of their guitar lines could be heard above the bass and drum mix. SUCK! At least the drummer's mustache was entertaining. Nothing More was nothing more than a gimmick band with a no shirted ripped up singer, choreographed multi member drum parts, and a gimmicky bass performance with an upright bass that took 3 band members to play something quite simple that one person could play. Interesting lyrics from what I could pick up, but a little delay pedal goes a long way, to say the least.
That brings me to the most disappointing performance of the night, Periphery. I have seen periphery 4 times now, and this was, by far, the worst show. First off, the setlist. Periphery played 1 off the ST, 3 off P2, and the rest from Juggernaut. While the first two albums were high energy, djenty songs that everyone in the crowd knew, the Juggernaut songs were slow-ish droners, and didn't have much dynamic or angular riffing that these guys are familiar with. Nobody knew the songs, and the crowd was limp. It would seem, to me, that the songs selected off the new record (save The Bad Thing, which was pretty djenty and cool) were too boring and chorus driven sing-alongs. Anyway, the first time I heard them live did not impress me.
They announced their last song, and left the stage without an encore. What?!?! I've been to two shows in my life (I go to a ton of shows) without encores, and it rubs me the wrong way. Turns out Spencer blew his voice and Matt injured his hand. Unfortunate as it may be, it resulted in a weak show.
Periphery can do so much better. I have seen it. Maybe being so early on the tour the band has not hit their "GROOVE" yet, but I would suggest a strong review of the setlist, as well as including more older songs and a freaking encore!!
Racecar should never be left out of a setlist...