On November 19th, I had the amazing opportunity of seeing Pierce The Veil on their world tour with Sleeping With Sirens, Beartooth, and This Wild Life at Freedom Hall in Lancaster, PA. If you’re a Pierce The Veil fan or a fan of post-hardcore music, this show is definitely for you. To be honest, I wasn’t too crazy about the venue. It was just really big, flat and actually smelled like bad body odor. The good thing about the venue, however, was that the stage was up pretty high so no matter where you were you could see and hear what the guys were doing. Another thing that I actually really did like about this arena was that the merchandise stand, bathroom and the beer garden were all in the same room as the stage. This was particularly important because if you needed or wanted to visit any of these things, you could still see and hear every bit of the performance.
The openers, This Wild Life and Beartooth, were pretty good. Being an opener is a hard job to fulfill. Thousands of people are coming to see a certain band play, and the openers are usually not very well-known. So not only do they have to please an entire crowd waiting for the headliners to come on, but they also have to make these people enjoy their music, otherwise their fanbase may not grow. I feel that This Wild Life and Beartooth fulfilled their jobs as openers. There may have only been a handful people who knew their music, but the crowd was definitely enjoying them and they did a great job getting everyone ready for the main acts. Sleeping With Sirens came on next. As expected, they did an amazing job, and were incredible live. I don’t think anyone could have picked a better band for Pierce The Veil to co-headline with. They really interacted witht he audience, and cracked a few jokes here a there.
I really want to talk about Pierce The Veil’s performance because they were definitely the best part of the concert by putting on an incredible show. The lights, the setlist, the sound and not to mention the confetti cannons, made a really good atmosphere. By the way, who doesn’t love confetti cannons? Moving on, the guys really got into their music and were not afraid to really rock out. They were head banging and jumping around while spinning and screaming. It was all so fun for both the band and the crowd. The fans got just as rowdy as the band did by creating mosh pits, sitting on shoulders, crowd surfing and many other wild things people have come up with to do at concerts. Even if these things may not be for you, Pierce The Veil are still a pretty entertaining band to witness. I’ve always felt that the crowd’s engagement says a lot about a band, so if most the people in the crowd look miserable, the band probably isn’t doing a good job. This, however, was definitely not the case for Pierce The Veil. It was blatantly obvious that everyone had a great time from start to finish.
During the entire performance, I felt like I was watching a band of guys who truly love what they are doing and who really care about their fans. They had a lot of little things throughout the performance that they did to show the crowd how much they appreciate the support. For example, at the beginning of their song ‘Bulletproof Love,’ frontman Vic Fuentes pulled a fan onto the stage to be up there with the band during the first verse of the song. Truthfully, pulling the fan on the stage was pointless because all she did was sit there while he sang, but the idea of doing it is what was genuinely amazing. It really goes to show that they appreciate their fans. Although they cannot have everyone on stage, or maybe include everyone in their lyrics, they try their best to do the little things to show how important the fans are to them.
The entire setlist that was played was awesome too. They guys played all of their biggest hits and even slowed it down to do a little acoustic performance for those who liked their softer work. Sometimes when you see a band, you are expecting a sound that’s exactly like their album, but due to all the editing, you end up getting something that sounds more like a teenage boy just about to hit puberty. Pierce The Veil, however, sounded exactly like how they do on their album, arguably better. The sound is both intense and ear-piercing, but perfectly so. At the end of their set, the moment everyone had been chanting for had finally arrived: ‘King For A Day.’ It was really cool to see Kellin Quinn on stage with Pierce The Veil. Vic and Kellin’s voices meshed together so well and it sounded just like how they do the song on the album. I don’t think there was a single person in the arena who wasn’t singing along.
If you haven’t seen Pierce The Veil or Sleeping With Sirens live, I strongly suggest you do. If you’re the kind of person that is okay with standing in line all day just to be front row, then this would be the show to do it for. These bands are both incredible live and you’d surely be missing out. Even if you can’t catch them on their world tour, Pierce The Veil has an album set to be released in early 2015, which should spawn a follow-up tour. For a full list of The World Tour dates, check out the band’s official website.
