WHILE SHE SLEEPS, BURY TOMORROW, AND VENDED BRING THE CARNAGE TO CHICAGO’S BOTTOM LOUNGE
Welcome back! Did you miss us? We roll into this week with another Get Some Magazine party at Chicago’s Bottom Lounge. Tonight, we teamed up with While She Sleeps, Bury Tomorrow, and Vended for what will transpire to be one of our most up close and intimate shows we’ve done for GSM. Starting into the second week of this tour, there has been a lot of excitement from the previous shows the past week. It’s been about 3 years, and we were very excited to have an opportunity to cover While She Sleeps again. Without further adieu, LET’S GET TO THE SHOW!!
Vended hit the stage on fire, getting the crowd pumped up and opening their set with “Nihilism”, and leadman Griffin Taylor was calling out to get the pits going early, which this crowd obliged with a ruthless mosh pit. Everyone in this band was in complete unison to ensure we had the most exciting, energy-packed opening set for this show. ‘Ded to Me” hit the crowd like a vicious left hook from Mike Tyson. The fans pitted up for another beat down with the song. Fast-paced, hard-hitting, pit-worthy songs were played the entire set. Some other notable songs on the set were “The Far Side”, “Pitiful”, and “Asylum”. Just an aside note observation: lead singer Griffin is the son of Corey Taylor (Slipknot), and drummer Simon is the son of Shawn “Clown” Crahan. Now, does this band have some 90s Slipknot feel? Absolutely. But I don’t frown upon it, this is a whole different feel, this is Vended…their music, their style, and their vision. This crowd was pumped and ready to go for Bury Tomorrow.
Bury Tomorrow has always been one of those bands that kept us hooked from the first time we saw them live. Tonight, I get the up close and personal experience. Bury opened the set with “Abadon Us”, and this room exploded. The whole room sang along and pitted up on this opening song. There is no stopping this train of pain. We roll into “Earthbound”, and the floor opens again; we are pitting baby, let’s go!! Through the set, it was nonstop energy. The fans came to play hard for this set, and Bury Tomorrow fed off that energy. There are such great melodic and post hardcore mixes with this band and their songs, but that 1-2 punch from lead vocalist Dani with his raspy growls and lows and Tom’s epic cleans have always made this band a force to be reckoned with. Other songs in this set list were “DEATH (Even Colder)”, “Boltcutter”, “Cannibal”, “Majesty”, and ending with “Choke”. Be on the lookout for these guys dropping a new album, “Will you Haunt Me, With That Same Patience,” this May. I say all of us went hard during that set. I was in the photo pit nonstop with these guys, finishing up in the crowd and joining the action. Adrenaline pumped; we were ready for While She Sleeps to hit the stage.
We’ve been on a long 3 year wait to see these guys again, and here we are, front and center for some crazy While She Sleeps action. I will tell you from experience that the stage presence of this band is unmatched by any other. Lead singer Loz Taylor is notorious for many crazy stunts, from hanging off ceiling rafters, crowd walking, and jumping off balconies into the crowd. At our first shooting of these guys 3 years ago, I accidentally had a mic cord get wrapped around my neck and dragged to the barricade while Loz dove into the crowd. I kept my camera going and continued to shoot. Purely accidental, but I live in the moment, and it was probably one of the “cooler” things to happen at a show. So, we’ve been hooked since.
While She Sleeps opened the set tonight with their high-energy song “Rainbows”, the crowd jumped for this one. Fans broke out and sang along for this one also. Keeping the energy going, the guys rolled right into “Leave Me Alone”, and we finally got a few crowd surfers to hit the barricade, and fans were taking the reserve energy they had been feeding the band with it. “Anti-Social” is where we all finally came together and sang the hell out of this song. We had a steady flow of crowd surfers for this one. Loz was seen jumping off the drum kit multiple times into the crowd at the barrier, singing with them throughout the set. High energy, high action, and pure adrenaline are what we got for this set. Other songs played on this set were “THE GUILTY PARTY”, “SELF HELL”, “Hurricane”, “TO THE FLOWERS”, and ending with “SLEEP SOCIEITY”.
I usually end this with my little lighting notes, and it was perfect tonight. The crowd tonight was unusually “light,” like 300 or so people, but these bands I applaud and have earned a higher respect because they all played like they were in front of 50,000 people. This was one of the most intimate shows we’ve done for GSM. We’ll catch you all on the next one, peeps.
