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Finally it has cooled down enough to enjoy an outdoor venue in STL and the Take Back Your Life tour helped to heat up a much needed chill evening.
Starting off the show was a Ukrainian metal band named Jinjer fronted by Tatiana Shmayluk, a highly energetic woman with guttural vocals that make any male singer envious.
Jinjer is a progressive metal band and doesn’t hold any punches in their live performances. Amazing musicians all around, if I only had one complaint, which I don’t like to have ever, it’s that their setlist was limited to six songs. The came, they saw, they conquered in such a small time.
Next up was Breaking Benjamin. It took exactly one song to force my memory back 20 years to when this was my favorite band. BB’s entire setlist was a homage to their greatest hits, of which only one song I wasn’t familiar with.
This band always shines and the vocals are haunting like a specter drifting through a chilling October fog. The band is one of the most solid groups and always sounds like you’re just listening to the album over loudspeakers.
Benjamin Burnley, the frontman of BB, told a story of how STL is his second home and that upon their first US tour how STL was more welcoming and showed them more energy and love than anyone and how they will always have STL at the top of their touring schedule.
If you ever have the chance to catch a Breaking Benjamin show make sure you do not miss the opportunity.
Now onto our headliner.
Jimmy Hendrix’s fire played over the house speakers, quietly at first and midway through slowly the volume raised and so did the fans. The thundering of electronic bass shook the seats like a slow trembling of an earthquake. The white curtain in the foreground was lit up with spotlights like lightning and with every flash it held a silhouette of each band member in an indirect unison.
Finally like a white flag dropping in refusal to give up, the curtain dropped and the crowd exploded with the first song Hey You.
Powering through their next four songs saw some of the bands biggest hits from numerous albums throughout their career which concluded with the first music break.
Frontman David Draiman expressed his love for his “brothers and sisters in blood,” telling the fans that we are all one and united.
The next two songs were a duo that I have never heard before but still 100% Disturbed. If their is one thing I can say without a shadow of a doubt is that this band hasn’t changed their sound one but over their entire career.
The stage and house goes as dark as a moonless night and a PSA comes over the tron. Talking about depression and its ruthless effects on the human mind and the many people we have lost due to depression and ultimately suicide the PSA ends with a message of hope and the suicide hotline.
Next Draiman takes the stage for his performance of A Reason To Fight and after it ends he sits emotionally on his stool in tears and silence as the crowd becomes his therapist and helps him to dry his weary eyes. He tells us how he misses his lost friends and makes mention of Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell and how this past February he almost joined them but with the help from his son and us fans he found the strength to stand up and we gave him a “reason to fight.”
Next up saw a guitar solo from Dan Donegan which led into the Genesis cover of Land Of Confusion. One more song and then a drum solo from Mike Wengren which shook the entire house.
Now it’s time for their most well known cover. Simon and Garfunkel’s classic hit The Sound Of Silence saw the crowd erupting in a singalong with Draiman and this was my favorite segment as Donegan played a piano on fire while Wengren thundered on a pair of timpani’s.
A bass solo by John Moyer opened with a couple Tool baselines and into his own metal groove alongside Wengrens drums.
The rest of their set composed of their biggest hits and a three song encore.
Disturbed puts on one hell of a show and their stage presence is exceptional. Their lights blew me away as they had four horizontal pillars of lights that waved in motion across the entirety of the stage above them. Utilizing the most fire and smoke I’ve seen since Rammstein, Disturbed heated up a drizzly chill evening in more ways than one.
