Local opening act The Final Hour brought a pretty large following with them to Fubar Sunday night. Their following was full of energy and incited the rest of the crowd to get pumped with them. From here the momentum continued. Although only the second act of the night, the Cover-Up were the most intense bringing the crowd to such a frenzy that they felt the need to ask the crowd to make sure to stay safe. That said, after each time they expressed their concern for the members of the audience they’d unleash a song even more intense than the last causing the insanity in the crowd only to ascend.
After these two sets I could only wonder how the crowd would react to the big names on the bill. As A Skylit Drive took the stage, the energy was high in the audience, but that energy couldn’t be matched onstage. Perhaps it was just because it one of the last shows on a long tour but A Skylit Drive dragged. Every song they played on Sunday was played ten to twenty beats per minute slower; absolutely destroying the sense of urgency they put across in both their EP, “She Watched the Sky” and this summer’s LP, “Wires… And the Concept of Breathing.”
To make matters worse, between every song vocalist Michael “Jag” Jagmin and screamer / bassist Brian White felt the need to slow down the set with inane banter between each song. Each bit of banter always asked the crowd to show a more excitement but what A Skylit Drive seemed not to realize is that it was them sucking all of it out of the air.
During the most bizarre moment of the show, Jag introduced a “special guest,” Bam Margera, and invited him to the stage so that he could slap him across the face. Now, while this person looked like Bam Margera he sounded absolutely nothing like Bam does on television so I cannot conclusively say one way or the other whether or not it was him but the kids at Fubar sure as hell were convinced and shot picture after picture, videos galore on their assorted cameras and cell phones. That said, the bit wasn’t in any way funny or interesting. As a huge fan of Jackass and many other Bam Margera television shows, the complete stupidity of the act in addition to the way it slowed the set even more made it worthless. That said, I’m sure the Youtube community strongly disagrees. In fact, if you want to see the act itself you can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNAQ4qTNxP4.
While the A Skylit Drive set was definitely lackluster, it sounded pretty good considering. Besides the dragging pace at which they played every song, in general they sounded solid. “Knights of the Round” was probably the highlight of the set both in terms of how it sounded and how the crowd responded. “Eris and Dysnomia” was also great with great post-hardcore vocals throughout and particularly at the start of the track that really got the crowd going.
The worst part of the night was definitely their terrible attempt at “She Watched the Sky’s,” “Hey Nightmare, Where Did You Get them Teeth?” Strangely, Jag could not sing the song well at all. The problem wasn’t range as his vocals can reach unbelievable heights (to the point that they could start doing screamo Yes covers), there was just something wrong about the timbre. Jag’s voice is much clearer and it does not work at all for the song.
Escape the Fate, also with a new singer (Craig Mabbitt formerly of blessthefall), came out with all of the energy A Skylit Drive lacked. Fans in the audience rejoiced as they came out playing a solid mix of old and new. It seems Escape the Fate realized that while Mabbitt is a perfectly accomplished vocalist, his and Radke’s voice differ greatly and he cannot sing all of Radke’s old parts effectively. Thus, Mabbitt’s vocals were often supplemented by those of guitarist Bryan “Monte” Money who worked together to ensure each vocal part sounded as perfectly as it could. The result is arguably better than the original product (and likely involves a lot less law enforcement).
Highlights of Escape the Fate’s set include opening with their latest single, “The Flood,” which instantly got the crowd going, “Dying is Your Latest Fashion’s” “Situations,” and “On to the Next One” which when performed live sounds a whole lot better and less ridiculous than it does on album. In particular, on “On to the Next One” Mabbitt drops a lot of the strange drawl he threw into the recording. Perhaps he finally realized that natives of Scottsdale, AZ don’t have any sort of accent, just a whole lot of angst.
The highlight of the entire show was when Escape the Fate gave every single fan exactly what they wanted to hear: “The Guillotine” and “The Guillotine Part II” played back-to-back. The performance, particularly the guitar parts, was perfect and full of showmanship, showing that Escape the Fate see themselves more as glam rockers than scene kids.
The last interesting part of the night was when Mabbitt incited the crowd to split and rush into each other at the start of the song. Clearly this is something he loves as the last time I’d seen this was when Mabbitt (then still with blessthefall and opening for Escape the Fate) had the crowd do the same thing at the Creepy Crawl. This made it clear that Mabbitt and the rest of Escape the Fate have come together as one. Mabbitt shows no insecurity, and rather seems to embrace his status as Radke’s replacement and the rest of the band seems comfortable and confident in his ability to do so. If they hold it together like this I wouldn’t be surprised if their next album actually was their best yet. Now, let Radke’s jailhouse blogging commence.
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