The Death to Destiny Tour made one of their final stops at The Orbit Room in Grand Rapids on Wednesday with Asking Alexandria headlining. Along with many equally celebrated bands such as, For Today, Emmure (did not play the Grand Rapids show), Sevendust, and All That Remains, the tour is nearing it’s end.
Asking Alexandria headlined the From Death to Destiny tour, making Grand Rapids one of their final stops. With a packed lineup, the bands rip Grand Rapids a new one (Photo by Victoria Walenga, 2013).
With a packed lineup such as this one everyone was excited and ready to go. The first band to get the energy flowing was For Today opening with one of their most popular songs “Fearless” from the album “Immortal.” The intro to the song is incredibly catchy starting off with “we will not, we will not, we will not be afraid!” then all of a sudden Mattie Montgomery walks on to the stage and screams “WE ARE FEARLESS!” The crowd goes mad.
For Today played a mix of songs from their album “Immortal” along with songs from their older album “Breaker.” Halfway through the set Mattie stops to thank everyone for coming out to the show, he also mentions some hardships that he has struggled with in the past such as suicide, depression, addiction etc. he wants everyone to realize that they aren’t alone. Mattie then changes the subject and talks about how Jesus is his savior and he would be nothing without the faith he has today. The band then picked right back up into the song “Devastator” which is one of my personal favorites, and from the looks of the crowd surfers and the size of the mosh pit I have a feeling I’m not alone.
The next band on the bill was Sevendust a heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia. This band is determined to get the crowd pumped and ready to go wild. Their stage presence was unbelievable I caught my jaw dropping a few times during their set. The individual spot lights and the fog machines specifically caught my eye more than once. They opened with the song “Pieces” from their 2007 album “Next.” The crowd went absolutely insane the room was filled with people dancing, jumping and singing along, I had to dodge a few crowd surfers because everyone was so hyped.
The next act was All That Remains, and let me tell you these guys tore it up. They recently released their new album “A War You Cannot Win.” The band opened with the song “Stand Up” from that album. If you were in the pit, there was no looking back. It was awesome to experience the heat and energy that this group brought to The Orbit Room.
Last but not least, the band everyone had been waiting for, Asking Alexandria. The crowd was going bananas during the drum and vocal checks. I turned around to a girl crying because she saw the sight of Ben Bruce and she kept repeating “he’s such a heart throb!” She wasn’t the only one (maybe he’s the next metal Justin Bieber?) The lights went down and the crowd went psycho. The intro to the song “Don’t Pray for Me” came on and the band members slowly walked out into the glowing fog showing only their silhouettes that alone was enough to make everyone start screaming.
Ben Bruce strikes the first note and Danny runs out to the microphone stand and the pit instantly opens taking up almost the whole venue. The strobe lights come on and the fog starts pumping filling the whole stage with the glowing mist. The band had high energy doing guitar flips and running back and forth across the stage. Danny was running around dancing next to the lead guitarist, Ben Bruce. The next song was “Run Free” from the new album “From Death to Destiny.” This song is one of the heavier songs on the album with not as many clean vocals but it made the crowd open up and start moving and I feel like Danny wouldn’t want it any other way.
Danny then stops to interact with the fans. “It is good to be back it is good to see your faces! We are going to take this back to our first album, are you guys fans of the first album stand up and scream?” everyone goes nuts, the lights go back down and they start strumming the first few cords to the song “A Prophecy” which was from their first album that was released back in 2009.
After playing 10+ songs the band thanks everyone again for coming out, instantly the whole venue starts chanting “One more song! One more song!” It takes them about a minute or so to come back on to the stage. Everyone was in high anticipation of what they were going to play next. The first few chords of the song “The Final Episode” were played and everyone lost it.
This show was a huge success in my book, with every band producing a full of life concert experience and everyone left satisfied (besides the fact that it was freezing outside when he had to walk back to our cars).
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