The student news site of Westford Academy

WA Ghostwriter

The student news site of Westford Academy

WA Ghostwriter

The student news site of Westford Academy

WA Ghostwriter

No Guts No Glory Tour hits Worcester

By Ethan Walshe
Managing Editor

On Friday, December 2nd, the No Guts No Glory tour made its Massachusetts stop at the Palladium in Worcester. The show was co-headlined by post-hardcore act Pierce the Veil and metalcore band Miss May I. The Amity Affliction, letlive and Woe, Is Me performed as direct support.

Fans had begun to stretch down the neighboring block as they waited for doors to open. When the doors did open at 5:30, ticket holders began to pour in. This amusingly led to every male in line being admitted before the women because the number of women was far greater than the number of men and thus required more time at security.

The event was originally set to be in the upstairs area, a much smaller part of the Palladium than the downstairs, but due to the number of ticket sales, had to be moved to the larger downstairs area. This meant that while the venue was not packed, there was more room to move around, particularly outside of the pit. Fans were abuzz with anticipation at roadies and tech crew made final adjustments to the equipment onstage.

After an extended wait indoors as fans filtered through, the lights finally dimmed and the first band took the stage, Australian post-hardcore quintet The Amity Affliction. The band played an impressive five song set, despite being without one of their two guitarists. The band got a pretty rowdy crowd going, as hardcore dancers began to fill the open space on the floor.

The second band to play, LA-based progressive hardcore act letlive were plagued by technical difficulties throughout their set. Feedback from microphones were a common occurrence and one of their guitarists seemed to be having consistent issues, frequently consulting his amp or his guitar tech in the middle of a song. That being said, the group had an incredible energy, unrivaled by anything this concert goer has seen before, as lead vocalist Jason Butler threw himself across the stage and into the crowd.

The final opening act, post-hardcore septet Woe, Is Me from Atlanta, Georgia took to the stage to a frenzy from fans. The group played a powerful set consisting mainly of songs from their debut album Number(s) but also their recent cover of Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” from the Fearless Records compilation album Punk Goes Pop, Volume 4 much to the glee of many fans. The group announced that they would be doing a signing at their merchandise table immediately following their set and after their performance a large number of concert goers moved to the back of the venue for a chance to meet up with the band members.

With all of the opening bands finished, the pit began to fill with all of the fans for the upcoming co-headliners. There was huge amounts of chatter as the minutes passed and roadies moved the opening bands equipment out of the way to make room for the headliners. The atmosphere could be described as electric before these main bands took the stage.

Metalcore band Miss May I stormed the stage amongst a frenzy of strobe lights and smoke and began to tear through their lengthy set. While the band is of a much different genre than the other bands on the tour, they were still received very well by most of the crowd, who began to get very rowdy. The most impressive thing about the bands performance was certainly their light show. Strobe lights were set to go off with every hit of the bass drum, so double bass rolls became even more incredible than they already were.

The mosh pit was filled to the brim with people throwing themselves into each other, crowd surfers and even and old styled circle pit. At one point, lead vocalist Levi Benton called for everyone in the crowd to befriend the security located at the front of the crowd, meaning that fans should crowd surf to the front. He asked for a hundred people to crowd-surf by the end of the song, and though no actual count was taken, just by appearances it seemed that they were very close.

Drummer Jerod Boyd played an engrossing drum solo towards the end of the groups set, exhibiting his strong double bass and odd time signature drumming. The crowd erupted to his performance and the rest of the group returned to the stage to close out their set.

As Miss May I filtered off of the stage, everyone in the crowd got very excited; they were mere moments away from what many ticket holders had come out to see. The overall room temperature seemed to rise several degrees from the fans sheer excitement.

Before final band Pierce the Veil came to the stage, a man dressed as the grim reaper ran out on stage and distributed foam swords and battle axes to an ominous sound track. Fans went wild as the clutched and grabbed for the free items.

San Diego based post-hardcore band Pierce the Veil came on stage to a powerful introductory track explaining what sounded like a post apocalyptical radio announcement. The group then began to play through their extended set consisting mainly of songs from from their 2010 sophomore release Selfish Machines, including opening numbers “The Boy Who Could Fly” and “Besitos”, which are fan favorites. Midway through their set, vocalist Vic Fuentes appeared towards the back of the venue at the sound booth, guitar in hand, to play through “Bulletproof Love” for a more intimate performance. Before finishing the track, he said that he “needed some help getting back to the stage.” The high pitched scream of every fangirl in the audience that followed was deafening, as he threw himself onto the crowd and crowd surfed back to the stage. The whole band finished the song when he returned.

A little while later during the sec, Fuentes stopped the music for a few minutes to talk about the Keep A Breast Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to fighting breast cancer, who the band had brought along with them on the tour. He shared a personal story about knowing someone with breast cancer who is now cancer free and the crowd erupted with applause and cheers.

The band finished their last few songs, including another song from the Punk Goes Pop compilation mentioned earlier, their cover of Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are.” The band closed the show with their most popular song “Caraphernelia” and a surge of confetti. The audience was engrossed by their performance and the sight.

The No Guts No Glory tour was an impressive show to attend. All of the bands played with an awe-inspiring energy which made the musical performances all the more entertaining. The tour will be continuing until the 16th.

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