Caught the Summer of Loud tour on July 22 in Mansfield, MA. It lived up to its name! It was loud…and pretty cool too.
The show started at 3pm on a Tuesday. So like many other attendees, we didn’t catch the beginning of this festival-style tour which wasn’t ideal. I don’t like missing the start of shows. But hey, someone’s gotta work. We saw one of the opening acts, The Devil Wears Prada, who’s a band I’m familiar with but was never super into. But one of their songs, Ritual, was actually pretty cool because pretty much the whole band sang on it. They had some other good tunes during their set and they made a fine warmup for what was to come.
This tour is made up for 4 different headliners, who take turns closing the show so the order changes each night. For this show, the order was Beartooth, I Prevail, Parkway Drive, and Killswitch Engage. Killswitch is from MA so this order made sense. Coming into the show, I was very excited to see I Prevail again as I saw them at Sonic Temple in May and loved them. Beartooth was at Sonic as well but I wasn’t in love with them at that show, but I do like their tunes. I was also very excited to see Killswitch as I hadn’t seen them in forever – not since that time I was kicked off of In Flames’ tour bus about 20 years ago. Parkway Drive I barely knew. But things change…
Beartooth opened for the headline acts and they were awesome! One their opening lines sums things up nicely:
Singer Caleb Shomo brings the energy! What a great front man tonight. Do I know all their songs? No, but I thoroughly enjoyed the set. The energy, the pyros, the gratitude shown to the crowd, and the “sing alongs” made this a great time. They played ATTN early in the set and I love this song (video at bottom of this post). The very beginning though reminds of the theme song from “Reading Rainbow.” Check out the album version to compare, you won’t be disappointed. I Was Alive, Riptide, and Might Love Myself were also played and kicked ass.
These guys ended up being one of the highlights for me. The singer just seemed genuinely humbled to be on that stage doing this for a living. He talked about performing in the parking lot at this venue many years ago and how it was an honor to be on the main stage. When he was leading the crowd in a sing-along type of chant, he seemed genuinely overwhelmed by the crowd singing back to him. Could’ve all been fake but it was cool. I really enjoyed these guys more this time around.
I Prevail was next and I was most excited for these guys. On the huge Sonic Temple stage, these dudes owned the crowd and have a great frontman. But I didn’t feel it this time. They were good, but they weren’t great. Music was good, performance was solid, but I didn’t feel that same level of energy they’ve had in the past. And the energy didn’t compare to Beartooth. Lots of awesome pyros though, and some great tunes. They opened with Bow Down, one of their bigger songs, and the set also included Hurricane, Blank Space, Gasoline, Violent Nature, and Self-Destruction. I did enjoy the set, but I know they can do better. Maybe they prefer to headline.
Parkway Drive was next. I was familiar with their style, but won’t say I know them. Heard a couple songs here and there but that’s it. Well…holy hell was I pleasantly surprised. Yes, they’re loud, and the singing style is more gravely, screaming, “dirty” vocals. But it works. The music itself was great. Great riffs, great melodies, high energy. The singer is a spaz and was practically moshing solo throughout the night, never letting up. Must be a fan of cardio (Stole my friend Frank’s line there)! The music was awesome and with a different vocal style, these dudes could just as easily be a power metal band (Primal Fear, Hammerfall, etc.). Additionally, the showmanship of the band…someone is a fan of Tommy Lee.
As I was watching them set up the stage, I suspected some killer drums and perhaps some over the top pyros would be part of their set. My suspicions were right as they got to the last tune, Crushed. The drum cage started spinning left and right and eventually all the way around on circles…while on fire. Must be fun to play drums upside down with flames all around you. He had to do it since the whole stage was on fire. I know I’ve probably said “energy” 20 times already, but man! The energy of this band was incredible. I’ll pull out the thesaurus next time…but they’ve found a new fan in me and hopefully many others. Check out this video.
Last up was Killswitch Engage. As I said, I saw them about 20 years ago (yeah I’m old) with a different singer and before I really got into them. So I was looking forward to the set. But as they started their set, I was a bit underwhelmed. It seemed like they were just playing insanely heavy for the sake of being heavy. Admittedly, I didn’t know the first two songs (sorry, casual listener, not a diehard fan) but then they got to I Believe. A song I know and really like, and find quite melodic. Cool riffs, good vocals, etc. But not tonight when played live. More over the top screaming, and played unnecessarily heavy (in this guy’s opinion). We gave it one more song and decided to make our way out of there. And we were not the only ones, by far. Quite the crowd was heading out. Ah well. Off night? Just a different live style vs recordings? I don’t know but it wasn’t for me.
Overall though, it was a fun show. Some solid bands and performances. And on the plus side, I got home a little early.
As a side note, Ozzy Osbourne died the day of this show, with the news being reported about an hour before this festival was scheduled to start. I expected a bunch of tributes and covers throughout the night, but there wasn’t as much as one would think. Beartooth (Caleb) did make a pretty heartfelt comment about it, and led the crowd in an “Ozzy” chant which was cool. I was hoping at least one band would change up their setlist and do an Ozzy cover, but from what I saw it didn’t happen. The venue played a ton of Ozzy in between songs though and had a cool graphic on the screen. I did consider staying for all of Killswitch to see if they changed their Holy Diver (Dio cover) encore to an Ozzy song instead…so let me know if I missed out.
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