Fun things happened on May 7th in Providence! The four acts in the title of this post played at the Strand Theater to a packed house. This is a couple days late and admittedly not my best post. But this was show #4 in 6 days.

Zero 9:36 was first bringing his blend of rap and rock to the stage. As an avid listener of SiriusXM’s Octane channel, I was familiar with this dude and the songs Adrenaline and Chasing Shadows which were both performed. What I didn’t realize until tonight is that this act is basically just 1 dude and not a full band. He does have a drummer and guitarist with him but it’s otherwise it’s a lot of prerecorded stuff that he sings and raps over. But it was cool.

Set It Off was 2nd tonight and a pretty fun band. Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing was the opener (if I recall) and is a fine tune also played on the radio. Punching Bag and Why Worry were a couple of others played. It was an interesting performance. The singer is totally rocking parachute pants which I haven’t seen since the days of MC Hammer.

They had a lot of energy and the singer barely stopped smiling so he seems to be having a lot of fun up there. A lot of hand waving though…maybe too much. But I’ll let it slide.

They had drums and 2 guitarists, but no bass. There was a lot of prerecorded vocals going on too which I’m not a huge fan of. There’s a lot of harmonies and choruses in their songs which in a studio is easier to achieve. But I guess the other band members can’t sing back up so they resort to recordings. If you can’t play yours songs live without computers….I dunno man. But this brings me to the next act Tech N9ne.

Tech N9ne is a rapper. And there were a lot of prerecorded music and computer assistance going on. BUT…he did have a band with him to create a lot of the music. But it was still a rap show. The crowd really seemed to be here for him. This makes sense as apparently Tech N9ne and Hollywood Undead alternate headlining each night. Tonight wasn’t his night to headline though.

Just about everyone in this crowd knew all the words and there was a ton of energy for this dude. But I didn’t get it. Towards the end of his set, it seemed like he finished early but still had time to kill. He kept asking the crowd, “what should I do next?” People would scream out random titles and he’d do 30 seconds of a song and then repeat this. The crowd loved every minute of it so I can’t knock it, but this was not for me.

Hollywood closed the show tonight and I thought they were awesome. Riot was the opener and a fun one. Comin’ in Hot, Hollywood Forever, Everywhere I go, Bullet, and Undead were all played throughout the night. Such great tunes (some a little more serious than others, some a little funny). What I liked is that they have 4 vocalists consistently throughout the night which makes for some great harmonizing. There’s at least 1 guitar all night and sometimes 2 guitars, as well as drums. It’s a very vocally driven act. They kind of remind me of the Beastie Boys but a more modern sound. Maybe others would disagree. But each vocalist had their part and it all meshes well together.

The energy was high, lots of crowd interaction, and they brought a 10 year old fan on stage who took great pleasure in dropping F bombs and flipping off the crowd.

Fun night overall and a good tour to check out.