Satisfying 15-year-old Me
Seeing Sevendust perform live for the very first time
I’m often known for being critical of music that is consistently on the radio. I’m not a big fan of choruses and the music I listen to tends to be a little more aggressive than the average person is comfortable with. It was a natural progression to move from Sevendust onto Soilwork, I think, but for a few years there, Lajon Witherspoon and his friends were my favorite band.
At that age, seeing concerts was difficult as I didn’t have regular transportation and I had no job so procuring money was rather difficult as well. After the album Seasons dropped in 2002 or 2003, I started exploring other styles of music and Sevendust was pushed to the back for a while. I still checked out their releases when they came but they didn’t have the same impact that they did when I was a teenager.
I was rather impressed with the album they released in 2010 and the one in 2013 but I had never really found quite the opportunity to attend one of their shows until October 23, when I went down and finally witnessed their set. There were a couple bands that opened up that I wasn’t too thrilled about. Wovenmar was the support band and though I wasn’t digging the vocalist, the instrumentation was great (As I Lay Dying minus their old singer, basically).
I was unprepared for the type of live performance they would offer. The crowd was far rowdier than the typical shows I go to. Though the music wasn’t as aggressive, I found myself surrounded by people who are meatheads at gyms and people in their 30s who haven’t learned the etiquette of metal shows. That was probably my only qualm about this show, the performance itself was great.
The set opened up with the 1997 song “Black” from their very first album, arguably one of their heaviest songs. There were no songs featured from Home or Animosity which surprised me because those were the albums that had the most commercial success for them. I also was surprised that despite just recently releasing a new album, there was not much live material promoting it.
All in all, I really enjoyed the show and I would definitely see them again.
-Ryan