Scream It! But This Time Like You Mean It.

Hello guys, I am here talking about a recent tour I had the chance to cover. It was the Scream It Like You Mean It! tour that covered much of the United States and gave the best of the metalcore world time to flex their muscles. The bill itself was loaded with goodies. The headliner for this tour was primarily Attack Attack!. The other bands included on this bill were none other then We Came as Romans, The Acacia Strain, Woe is me, Abandon All Ships, and Oceano.

There were even more openers, however, they like much of the tour were rotating depending on region. Regardless, the talent for this event was impressive. If not the larger bands, there was smaller bands that clearly proved they had the metal and meddle to become a largely successful band. The venue we visited was The Fox Theater Pomona, which was one of two (the other being the Glass House), which was required to hold the sheer volume of the bands. The venue itself was good as always, great acoustics and a very clean environment despite the hoards of metal fans rushing throughout. The only detriment, however, was I can only see half the bands on bill because of the scale and the logistics of the event. As a result, I missed some killer performances by Oceano and the Acacia Strain.

Finally is the talent . Metalcore is quite the fast paced style of music. It is loud, it hits hard, and it hits fast. But one thing that these metalcore bands have that few other genres of metal can even compare is stage presence. The entire set the band members were jumping, twirling, singing directly into the crowd. In fact, sitting in the photo pit getting photos I was greeted by the clean singer of We Came As Romans jumping over my head in the opening song to crowd surf. Then in true metal fashion, in the clutches of his fans, he belted out the lyrics seeming unphased by the 10 fans supporting and the hundreds more clamoring to get to him. This wasn’t exclusive just to We Came as Romans however. All the bands were engaging. Woe, Is Me was running around the entire stage making themselves seen. Even Attack Attack! covered a band member in silly string to celebrate his birthday on stage. It is nearly impossible to exclude any band from their awesome stage presence, since they were all so compelling in their own sense.

This stage presence makes for one of the most fun metal shows you can attend. It was definitely a good way to celebrate metal in the summer time and it holds its own against tours such as Mayhem Fest or even Summer Slaughter.