Photos and Review By Elizabeth Bruce
Escape The Fate kicked off the Out Of The Shadows tour on August 31st, and just recently brought the tour to Columbus, Ohio, on September 13th. The tour consists of Stitched Up Heart, Point North, D.R.U.G.S, and Garzi. First to take the stage was Garzi, with their single Demonstrate. Lead singer Christopher Garzon, is a very fun personality to watch on stage, he’s very full of energy and never stays still. He made sure to hit every part of the stage and interacted with all his fellow bandmates. As Garzon led into the next song See Me Now the crowd erupted into screams. As their set continued, the energy was high. They closed out their performance with Mess and left the crowd wanting more, which is a great way to start off a great night of music. Next to take the stage was the female-led Stitched Up Heart. Mixi Demner, lead vocalist, and company kicked it off with single To The Wolves. She made sure to let the energy shine as she let her long hair fly whilst handbanging through a fog of smoke. Mixi did a wonderful job with crowd interaction, and she knelt down on the stage singing into phones and even photographers such as me, a good amount of artists don't pay photographers any mind so it was very cool to see her do so. Not only did the band deliver a killer set but they also had some pretty good mosh pits going. After the set closed out with Immortal, Mixi announced that she and her bandmates, drummer James Decker, bassist James Mathias, and guitarist Meritt Goodwin, would be at the merch table to meet anyone who would like to join them. It's not very often you see artists do such a thing, so I myself took the time to meet and talk with the band, they are all such wonderful down to earth people. The third performance of the night was none other than Point North. While watching this group I caught myself head bobbing and learning the words very quickly as they are a very catchy group. Lead vocalist Jon Lundin has a very unique voice with an extremely wide range of pitch. Starting off strong with their hit single Ghost In My Home, Jon got the audience fired up and ready for the rest of the night. Again another amazing band to watch, one of the best parts of concerts with multiple performers is watching just how different each personality is.
D.R.U.G.S took the stage for the last band before the main act, and the pressure was on. Soon the pressure wore off as the crowd lit up watching vocalist Craig Owens rocked the house. As Owens began singing Destiny mosh pits opened up and even a couple walls of deaths. Moving on to Mr. Owl Ate My Metal Worm, the momentum did not slow down, the King of Clubs was packed left to right front to back with fans piling in, screaming the words back. As Craig got into the more heavier songs, the bigger the pits and the higher the energy, the crowd really ate up this performance. As the lights went down one last time for Escape The Fate to take the stage, ear piercing screams filled the venue louder than it had all night long. Frontman Craig Mabbitt walked on the stage first to start off with Forgive Me in an acoustic style. Soon after, the rest of the group joined as they jumped into Live Fast Die Beautiful. Guitarist Matti Hoffman, who just recently joined the band, and bassist Thomas Bell did an amazing job of switching sides and standing on the risers to ensure they were seen by every audience member packed inside the venue. Being an older band you would assume the majority of the fan base would be people in between their 30-40s but that wasn't the case in Columbus, Ohio. Looking around, I noticed a lot of younger fans probably in their early teenage years. This goes to show no matter how old or new of a band anyone of any age can be a fan. Keeping the night going Craig paused in the middle of singing to ask the crowd to split the pit down the middle to prepare for a wall of death, if you're new to metal shows a wall of death is where there's a clear divide between the left and right side of the pit and when the breakdown hits both side run at each other and turn it into a full blown moshpit. Not only did the crowd deliver but they went a little too hard and a few people got knocked onto the ground but immediately got picked up. Looking around during Gorgeous Nightmare I enjoyed watching everyone singing their hearts out enjoying themselves forgetting about the world outside. I highly recommend seeing Escape The Fate when they're in your town, you'll regret it if you don't.
