Friday night, the end of the work grind and everyone was ready to release all of their stress. Nothing More, Wage War and Veil of Maya brought the party and the fans showed up. Just a few minutes after doors it was announced that the show had officially sold out. From the moment the lights went down to the moment the last beat dropped, there was a sea of bodies surfing from the back of the venue to the barricade. I haven't seen the Wind Creek Events Center so energized over a rock and metal show in close to 10 years.
Veil of Maya started off the night with an ultra-heavy set. At first, I thought the crowd was just going to rock out and then the wave came. Veil of Maya is out supporting their newest release [m]other. They opened their set with Tokyo "Chainsaw" from this album. This song was blood pumping fire. It featured thunderous bass and drums from Danny Hauser and Sam Applebaum. The vocals from Lukas Magyar were rough and appropriately demonic. The next two songs were also from this album. "Artificial Dose", and "Godhead". "Artificial Dose" featured insane guitar work from Marc Okubo and "Godhead" was blend of heavy rhythm's, distorted crunchy guitar riffs, and signature metal vocals. They played a total of 8 heavy hitting tracks in about a 40-minute set. Veil of Maya was the perfect lead off for this tour.
Next up was Wage War. These guys have been around since 2010 but have picked up a lot of traction in the past few years. Their 4th studio album Manic was written during covid and produced a bunch of bangers. They played 7 songs from this album proving how prolific it was.
Wage War has two styles of songs, one where there are only the hard core vocals sung by Briton Bond and the other is where they mix hard core and clean vocals with guitarist and vocalist Cody Quistad.
They started off the night with a straight hardcore song "Stitch". The crowd exploded with both crowd surfers and multiple pits on the floor. The scene was complete chaos. I was off to one side of the photo pit area and kinda trapped in that spot for a bit until the body traffic lightened up. Their next songs were "Low" and "Gravity", both songs off of older albums. "Low" was a heavy song with mixed in vocals from Cody. "Gravity", slowed it down a bit, being a clean and melodic rock song. The dichotomy of these two songs really made it feel like there are two bands wrapped up in one.
A few songs later they performed their current mega hit "MAGNETIC". This is another melodic rock song driven by Cody that is huge right now on Sirius XM Octane. It's super fun and has a great hook. Although it's not super heavy it did not slow down the hyped up crowd, if anything it opened up the pits even more. They closed out the night with two bangers from the Manic album that I mentioned earlier. "Cirlce the Drain" and "Manic". If this says anything about the show, the amount of heat coming off of the bodies on the floor was another level. The fans at this point were going hard for nearly two hours with no signs of stopping.
Wage War definately gained a new fan in me this evening. Yes I've heard and liked their songs before but have never been driven enough to see them in concert. Nothing More got me in the door and I am thankful that they did.
Last but not least, Nothing More. I've know this band for quite some time. I first enountered them in 2015 when they were on a European tour with Halestorm. I saw them 6 times over a 10 day trip in the U.K.. As an American, tours in the U.K. and Europe are totally different than here. It's not uncommon to party with the bands after shows or on off days. The traveling caravan of fans got to hang out with them several times during this tour. I fell in love with their music, the intenseness of their live show, and the guys. They were all genuinely nice to everyone. Fast forward to 2019, I got to interview Mark Vollelunga, Nothing More's, guitarist. It was cool to catch up and show him some pics from that tour.
Nothing More is out supporting their up coming album, Carnal. In all honesty the anticipation is killing me. They currently have two tracks released, "If it Doesn't Hurt" and "House on Sand". They performed both of these tracks as well as "Angel Song" which has not yet been released. They mixed the new songs within the set as to not overload the crowd with new material all at once. They did however open their set with "If it Doesn't Hurt". As I've said I've seen this band before, probably 20 times since 2015 and this was the most insane crowd I've ever seen. I'm not sure if it was the cross over fans from the two previous bands or if Nothing More's fans all of a sudden became feral. The crowd surfers, the mosh pits, the screaming girls; they had it all.
Nothing More kept the pace up with a couple of older tunes, "Let 'em Burn" and "Don't Stop". Lead vocalist Jonny Hawkins ran around with his shirtless, painted, carved out body, singing effortlessly. The rest of the band, Mark Vollelunga (guitarist, vocals), Dan Oliver (bass, vocals) and Ben Anderson (drums), are the fullest sounding 3 piece on the planet. These guys aren't using tracks or gimmicks, just pure talent to produce such a massive live sound. During "Don't Stop", Mark jumped down into the pit and played into the crowd while standing on the barrier. This did not help the screamimng girl situation, I'm suprised no one fainted.
They kept up the massive energy during the rest of the set, Jonny jumped in on his own mini drum kit during "Tired of Winning" and "Ships in the Night". They hit a couple serious notes after that with "Jenny" and "Fadein/Fadeout" to close out the main set. Their encore was "Ocean Floor" and "This is the Time (Ballast). Of course they had to close out in a massive way. Jonny took his drums to the audience, the lucky fans in the middle of the rail got to hold onto them while he wailed away. Mark and Dan were on either side of him seranading the front row as well, talk about up close and personal.
Nothing More is one of the best sounding live bands in the current scene. It's hard to beat actual live music with talented musicians. They have a lot of dates in the upcoming months and I am sure a ton more to come with the release of their album. I'll be seeing them at least one more time at the end of the summer at WMMRs annual MMRBQ in Camden, NJ. Get out and support them.
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