Uproar Festival

Uproar Main Stage with Special guest Escape the Fate, Bullet For My Valentine, Seether, Three Days Grace, and Avenged Sevenfold

With one of the biggest and best line up for a traveling festival, Uproar did not disappoint with the almost sold-out venue. As most fans were standing out in the rain all day, they were glad to make their way into the pavilion for the main stage acts.

Up first was Escape the Fate, a great young band full of energy playing songs, Choose Your Fate, 10 Miles Wide, and Issues off their last self-titled album. This was my third time seeing them and just love the amount of energy they give. It was nice to see Max Green back, but Lead Guitarist Bryan Money decided to take a short break and Kevin Guft was filling his spot and did a good job. Towards the end, singer Craig Mabbitt thanked all the bands on this tour but gave a dig about Three Days Grace not liking them; not sure many paid attention but it became apparent when 3DG came on. They ended their set with Liars & Monsters, This War is Ours, and The Aftermath.

The next band to play was Bullet For My Valentine out of the UK and one my favorite metal bands. These guys come hard from the start of the show and don’t let up until they walk off. I have seen metal fans at first doubting them and then turning into big fans of them. They opened with the killer cut, Your Betrayal, and Pleasure & Pain off their last album, “Fever.” This led into Waking the Demon, which had the crowd banging their heads and the small pit area throwing crowd suffers over to security. One thing about BFMV is that they know how to play to the crowd. They left off some their more melodic songs and just gave the crowd a killer metal setlist.

Guitarist, Michael Paget is one hell of a guitar player with his insane speed runs up the fretboard, and at one point during one of his solo’s, someone threw a hoodie on stage and landed right on the guitar headstock, but this did not stop Paget from playing. They ended the show with one of my favorite songs, Tears Don’t Fall, and Alone. They thanked the Chicago crowd for giving them so much love and would be back next year.

Not many bands could follow but Seether did and gave a great set. They opened with Gasoline to set the mood and had the crowd rocking out and they followed with Fine Again and Broken. Now, most Seether shows are dark and I swear, one day they should just do a candle light show because they would feel at home, but tonight there more lights than any other shows due to the fact they were filming a video for their new single, Tonight off their new album, “Holding Onto Strings Better Left To Fray,” while not my favorite, most of the crowd was singing along with it.

Singer Shaun Morgan is not much of a talker but thanked the crowd for standing out in the rain and pointed out Sevendust and how much respect they had for them. They ended the set with Fake it and Remedy - both fan favorites and show why Seether is amazing live.

With two bands left on this great lineup, it was Three Days Grace to kill it on stage. They opened with The Good Life and right off the bat I could tell something was wrong with singer’s Adam Gontier voice. It was not as strong as it has been in the past shows I have seen them and have a feeling it has to do with some sort of sickness during this time of year. This did not stop him from giving the fans everything he had as Gontier left it all on stage. They followed it up with Break, Pain and thanking radio station Q101 no longer on the air with the first song they played of theirs, I Hate Everything About You.

Now, as I mentioned earlier with Escape the Fate taking a jab at 3DG, well, as 3DG thanked all the bands on this tour, they left out Escape the Fate which I found strange. During the song, Home, Gontier mixed in Lose Yourself from Eminem but his voice could not keep up the speed of rap – still, it got the crowd excited and jumping and they flowed right back into pocket with Home. They ended the night with Riot and a very weird version of Animal I Have Become. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am huge 3DG fan but tonight was all over the place for a band this good.

As Avenged Sevenfold crew was setting up, they placed a curtain to hide the huge deathbat. But with the wind and rain, a quarter of the curtain fell, giving a view to all the fans on the left side of the stage as they cheered. A7X is one of my favorite bands to cover and never am disappointed with their show. As the curtain fell and flames shot from the side and fire lit in the deathbats eyes, the crowd roared their approval, with that they played Nightmare.

One great thing about this tour is that they are playing different songs for each city they play, allowing the fans to vote for what songs they wanted played. I think this is amazing and gives each show a special feel to it.

They continued with Beast and the Harlot, Welcome to the Family, and Second Heartbeat. M.Shadows talked about how much he loved playing Chicago and you can tell how much Chicago loves them back. They played an 11 song set and gave fans their all as they ended the night with, A Little Piece of Heaven, Bat Country, and Unholy Confessions.

Be sure to check out Avenged Sevenfold with they go back on (Buried Alive) tour with Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, and Black Veil Brides in November, but for now they will be playing Uproar till mid October.

All Photos Provided by Peter Lizano