Wed May 8th - We take The Metal Coalition party on the road to Grand Rapids, Michigan for this one. We made our way to GLC Live at 20 Monroe in Grand Rapids, MI for another epic show, featuring a lineup of Veil of Maya as opener, and a co-headline duo of Nothing More & Wage War. Excited fans were lined up down the sidewalk prior to doors opening for this show, in anticipation for what would be an amazing night. The open floor GA was packed, with very minimal empty seats in the venue’s arena style balcony. The attendance for the night looked as if it was definitely near the venues 2,600 full capacity limit for this tour.
Courtesy of GLC Live at 20 Monroe
Veil of Maya opened their set with “Tokyo Chainsaw “, and the crowd erupted into a frenzy. The fans opened up a small mosh pit right away. Keeping up the energy Veil went into their next song “Artificial Dose”, and we got our first glimpse of crowd surfers. Barricade security had their hands full with the next few songs from Veil, that’s when the flood gates opened up with surfers. Veil of Maya put on a action packed opening set to build the energy for the next band, Nothing More. Some of the other songs included in this set were, “Outrun”, “Viscera”, and ending with “Mikasa”.
After a short break, Nothing More hit the stage and opened up their set with “If It Doesn’t Hurt”. Johnny Hawkins hit his stage riser with the traditional shirtless, black paint splatter look, and again the crowd erupted in loud cheers. Fans were seen crowd surfing right in the middle of this song, and actually it just seemed like a steady stream during the set. During song three, “Don’t Stop”, is when crowd surfing actually became a little overwhelming for barricade security, but every one on the barricade held their ground and brought the surfers back to safety, just to have some return in the same fashion. This was definitely the most intricate light show we’ve seen in awhile, and made for an amazing set ambiance. Some of the songs included in this set were, “Go To War”, “House on Sand”, “Fade In / Fade Out”, and ending the set with “This Is The Time”. The crowd for this set went hard along with the band, but definitely looked like they had enough stored in the reserve tank. Johnny Hawkins definitely knows how to keep an audience in his control and loves to get them riled up when it’s needed. This set was a fun one for the first time seeing this band, I would recommend catching them on this tour before time runs out.
Of course we took a peek at the set list a couple days before this show, and we knew we were in for on hell of a ride for this set. Wage opened the set with “Stitch” and the biggest mosh pit of the night opened up. “Stitch” has been a staple for most Wage War shows, but played mid set or closer to the end. The boys decided they were going to bring the carnage early and keep the energy going. Song two, “Low”, was no exception to bringing the energy, at this time surfers were flooding over the barricade, security was pushing photographers out of harm's way to keep up with what seemed like a waterfall of bodies flowing over the barricade. We got our first glimpse of two new songs, “Magnetic” and “Nail5”, which hit so much harder live than the album versions. “Magnetic” was a nice slow down leading into the next batch of songs, “Prison”, “Teeth”, and “The River”. The flow of bodies seemed to never stop coming during this set. We stuck around for a few after the set to catch a glimpse of exhausted fans that completely went nuts for this set. It was definitely one of those shows, that if you needed to get some aggression out, this was the place to be. We actually got our shot in a couple of the pits, just for old times, and man was this a blast. I would highly recommend you catch this tour when it hits your city.
Review & Photography By: Jim Helmecy Jr.
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