A tour that’s been selling out shows, date after date, the Deathless tour with Set It Off, Crown the Empire, Caskets, and DeathbyRomy, has been crushing cities in its path. An hour before doors fans were lined up around the corner and down the street, trying to stay dry from the rain. Some of the fans in line have been there for 2 hours, waiting to secure their spot on the barricade.

With the full house ready to shake the chill of the outside off, DeathbyRomy hit the stage on fire, opening up with “Vicious Bliss”, most of the crowd was already into “ready to go” mode. During the second song “City of Angels”, fans started getting into the set, a lot of them could be heard singing along with this one. The fans were warmed up after this set. If you weren’t there for them, most were leaving as new fans. Romy and the rest of the band have a way of pulling the crowd in and getting them involved. The stage presence of this band is exciting to watch. Some other songs included in this set were “Hellhound”, and “Saint”, and ending the set with “Day I Die”.

Caskets was absent for the first 2 weeks of the tour due to delays in their visa approval. As soon as the approval hit, the guys from London caught the next flight and jumped on the tour 2 shows ago. Hitting the stage and greeted by a house full of cheering fans, they opened the set with “Lost in Echoes”. The crowd jumped right into it with this opening number. You could see frontman Matt Flood smiling ear to ear, as fans jumped into a sing-along/ crowd surf mode during “Guiding Light”, you could tell this band was excited to finally be on this tour. Other songs in this set were, “Hold Me Now”, “Believe”, and “Glass Heart”.

Crown the Empire was up next, and frontman Andy Leo hit the stage like a man possessed during the opening number “Dogma”, and we got our first of many crowd surfers within the first 45 seconds of the set. House of Blues has a very noticeable floor bounce when fans start jumping, I don’t think the floor stopped moving this set, except for 1 or 2 songs. This set was packed with continuous mosh pits, crowd surfing, sing-alongs, and fans just having a blast. Crown played a blistering 9 song set which included some of the new bangers off the “Dogma” album and throwbacks to the OG’S from the “Fallout” era. Some of the songs in this set were “Black Sheep”, “In Another Life”, “Fallout”, and ending the set with “Makeshift Chemistry” Fans went all out for this set, and with one more band to go, will they have enough energy to keep it going?

Now by the way most of the crowd was wearing their Set It Off merch, you could tell who they were there to see. You could cut the crowd anticipation with a knife during the pre-set break. Excited fans pushed closer to the front to get a better view of their favorite band. As soon as the band hit the stage the crowd went crazy. Opening up with “Parasite” fans sang along from the opening note, if you didn’t get out all you’re energy during the first 3 bands, you were going to this set. This band knows how to inject a dose of adrenaline into a crowd. Numerous crowd surfers were coming over the barricade during “Fake Ass Friends”, well I mean actually during this whole set, there wasn’t a song that didn’t have numerous crowd surfing. During the middle of their set, lead singer Cody Carson rode an inflatable air mattress on top of the crowd during “Ancient Waters”. This set had an amazing 18-song set list, which included a duet with DeathbyRomy during “Partners in Crime”, a switch up with Cody and drummer Max, where Cody played the drums and Max sang during “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”, “Swan Song”, and ending the night off with a huge crowd favorite “Punching Bag”. Now I’ve covered a lot of shows in the last couple of years with Crown the Empire being within my “norm”, but I will tell you this whole lineup had me going from start to finish, it was definitely a fun time, and I’ll catch these bands again. From a photographer’s point of view, the lighting was amazing, the stage presence was exciting to shoot, and crowd participation was through the roof. All photos were shot with my new Canon R6 and Sigma 24-70 2.8 lens. Catch this tour and don’t miss out on the excitement of this one.

SET IT OFF

CROWN THE EMPIRE