Pierce The Veil, Beartooth, Dayseeker @ Entertainment Centre Theatre, Adelaide 24/7/2023
It’s already been upgraded to another venue and then hours before opening, a queue snakes it way up Port Road as far as the eye can see. Tonight, Pierce The Veil along with Beartooth and Dayseeker perform at the AEC and this doesn’t even begin to tell you how enormous this show is. I don’t just mean enormous because we are watching all three bands put on a headline grabbing arena show.
I just don’t mean enormous because combinations of copious amounts of confetti, smoke and rock n roll extravagance are mixed with raw human emotion. It’s enormous in that you cannot take your eyes off what’s going on for one second for fear of missing out on something unique.
Dayseeker, with their blend of soft harmonic alt rock music are a smooth introduction for the night that most other nights would steal the headlines.
Phone cameras illuminate the room for Burial Plot, Homesick has everyone jumping and Sweet Talk the hands clapping in unison. All this while under the context of many of the songs about singers Rory Rodriguez fathers passing from cancer as they finish with Neon Grave.
Beartooth meanwhile are rock n roll stars whose performance will have you reaching for a packet of throat lozenges the next day to soothe your singing voice. The energy on stage from vocalist Caleb Shomo and his band of merry men almost set it ablaze. The venue has fists pumping, and confetti spiralling everywhere during The Lines. Sunshine, Bad Listener and new song Might Love Myself – introduced by a touching speech about Shomo’s struggles with depression and being sober – are ferocious and the sound of that deep end literally reverberates your bones throughout.
More confetti , more smoke, more strenuous workouts for the crowd during BodyBag, Hated and the acapella crowd interacting vocals during In Between before The Last Riff see’s Shomo disappear into the packed arena while still trashing away on the guitar.
Pierce The Veil are not to be outdone, bringing their own rock n roll to the party and fly out of the gates with Death Of An Executioner, a nicely Mexican touched Bulls In The Bronx and a booming Pass The Nirvana.
The cheers from the audience are a little high pitched than earlier which gives you an indication of the demographic for tonight’s show, the bands first here for seven years, and it’s one of these fans who gets a night she will never forget.
Vocalist Vic Fuentes brings up a fan, Charli, on stage and serenades her while the band perform to a packed venue. Charli is obviously ecstatic at this up and close performance and is visibly moved before being thanked and presented with Fuentes guitar and chants of her name around the venue. Well played PTV, well played.
More confetti and smoke bellow throughout the venue, singing is commonplace as is clapping along as the band tear through Circles, Caraphernelia and King For A Day in a interactive performance that has many forgetting this is a Monday night.
So yeah, this had raw emotion, confetti galore, a rogue frontman and an emotional fan having her name chanted across a sold out theatre all to the back drop of rock n roll. It was a pretty enormous night.
Live Review By Iain McCallum