Escape The Fate and blessthefall brought their tour celebrating 10 years of their albums ‘This War Is Ours’ and ‘Witness’ to Newport Music Hall in Columbus, Ohio on September 21st. Supporting them on the tour was the always entertaining Islander, and the local band Dread Engine warmed up the crowd as the opener.
Coming to a venue on the Ohio State University campus on the day of a home football game is certainly an experience that no one at the show will soon forget, including the bands. With a sea of people in OSU gear and no parking in sight, fans formed a line outside of the venue and shortly made their way inside. While waiting to relive and reminisce about the albums from a decade ago, they were greeted by Dread Engine starting off the show the right way. They played a cover of Linkin Park’s “Papercut” and got the crowd moving with their energetic stage presence.
Islander took the stage the next, and they absolutely demanded the attention of the crowd. Their vocalist Mikey Carvajal has a lot of on-stage antics such as putting a cymbal on his head, throwing a catching a guitar, and spitting straight up in the air and catching it in his mouth repeatedly. Their unique sound is just as entertaining as their presentation. With songs like “Coconut Dracula” and “My Friends”, which features Eric Vanlerberghe of I Prevail, these guys are truly creating music that is refreshing and special. For one of their songs, Mikey even had a young boy from the crowd join him on stage to perform with the band.
Performing their hit album ‘This World Is Ours’ from front to back, Escape The Fate took their fans back to the days of Warped Tour 2009 and all the memories of just over a decade ago when Craig Mabbitt joined the band as lead vocalist. The crowd was headbanging and singing along to songs like “Something”, “10 Miles Wide”, and “Harder Than You Know”. After playing the full album, the band played a few more songs including their newest hits “I Am Human” and “Broken Heart” as well as “One For The Money”, which is their most played song on Spotify with over 54.5 million spins. Needless to say, the band gave their fans a performance they will not forget.
To close out the show, blessthefall played their album ‘Witness’ in full. With fans jumping and chanting their name, they showed why they have been around successfully all these years. Lead vocalist Beau Bokan came down off the stage multiple times and gave high-fives to the fans in the front row and stood on the barricade to sing with their fans. After playing the whole album, like Escape The Fate, they also played a few more songs including “Cutthroat” and a few other fan favorites.
If this tour is coming anywhere near you, I absolutely recommend going. These bands will take you on a trip down memory lane if you were a part of the scene a decade ago. From the time of Warped Tour, free burned CDs in parking lots outside venues, and physical record label samplers, this is a show that will take you back in time. Escape The Fate and blessthefall will have you singing along to songs that you may wonder how you even remember from all those years ago and Islander, even if you have never heard any of their music, will genuinely entertain you.
