Killswitch Engage and August Burns Red bring down The Warfield, SF!

This show was of course opened by Light The Torch, who I unfortunately only caught a little bit of due to traffic, which severally bummed me out. While I’m not a big fan of their albums, I must say that the last few songs I caught were quite impressive. Howard has always had tons of energy on stage to compliment his huge voice and this was no different, they were strong, on point and tight as hell starting some good momentum leading into the rest of the night.

August Burns Red came on and of course they do what they do and they do it awesome every single time, they never hold back and always have more energy than most of the bands that are out there today matched with their music that is just purely aggressive and technical. I find it funny that they are from Pennsylvania and I love them so much being also from Pennsylvania, but they have really stepped up and become one of my favorite bands on the planet. Tonight in San Francisco at The Warfield was no different, they absolutely shredded that entire venue and you could feel the lift that they brought to that crowd the second they came on. Always a treat for me to shoot them and enjoy the energy they bring to the table.

Moving into Killswitch Engage, I’ve been a fan of theirs since their first album and that fandom that I had did waver a bit during Howard’s tenure but had absolutely nothing to do with Howard in particular, and more to do with how the music had changed on those albums. I do think that Howard, as I said earlier brings a certain dynamic to any band that is just phenomenal with an insanely great voice and lots of energy he is a true front man. But when I look at Jesse and listen to Jesse I actually think that Howard made Jesse a better singer, I could be wrong but who knows. Tonight 22 years later which makes me feel very old all of a sudden, Killswitch did exactly what they do as well. They played a solid mix of all their albums and really did appease fans of every generation of theirs and then the last three songs Howard came out and sang with Jesse. Having Howard come out on tour and having him come out and sing the last three songs with Jesse, I think really shows how much love and respect they all have for each other as a band and again going back to my thought that Howard made Jesse a better singer but either way tonight at the Warfield in San Francisco they brought the house down, they played fast music right next to their Ballads. I’ve seen them on big stages before but I truly think that they are at a point where they should be in arena’s. Either way, they put on a fantastic show as usual, no holds barred and gave the crowd everything they wanted. 

While you’ll never please everyone, I feel that they attempted to do just that. Two decades of great music that I’ve been lucky enough to watch progress from small clubs to large venues makes it very personal to me and I for one, cannot wait for the next tour!

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I'm a screenwriter, journalist, independent filmmaker and photographer when time permits. I cut my teeth in Journalism with Klusterfuct Magazine, Fringe Magazine and finally Your Music Magazine interview bands such as Rob Zombie, Korn, Unearth, Shadows Fall, Rise Against, All That Remains and many more. Fed up with the politics involved in working for someone else I ventured out on my own journey and started creating short films in hopes to one day create feature films, but alas I missed writing about bands that mean so much to me, so here I am...fighting the good fight, fighting the metal fight!
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